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V 


The Beating Heart 


By 


VICTORIA CROSS 

Author of **Anna Lombard'* *'Five Nights,** **Life*s Shopwindow/* 
*^Over Life*s Edge,** etc. 



New York 

BRENTANO’S 


PUBLISHERS 




c 


A- 

or-- 


Copyright, 1924, by 
VIVIEN CORY GRIFFIN 


All rights reserved 


©C1A808498 - 

Printed in the United States of America 

OCT 2V '24'^ 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

1. The Kiss in the Wilderness .... i 

2. Colour.49 

f 

3. A Novel Elopement .62 

4. The Jewel Casket.100 

5. The Vengeance of Pasht . . . . 116 

6. Village Passion . 128 

7. Supping with the Devil.151 









The Heart can beat with 

LOVE 

DESIRE 

PITY 

SYMPATHY 

FEAR 

JEALOUSY 

INDIGNATION 


vi 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 


BY 

VICTORIA CROSS 

They were coming up in a closed carriage from 
Jerico, a jolly, merry, roystering crowd. Melisande 
whose real name was Eliza, late of the Gaiety 
theatre, now married to a millionaire. Lord and 
Lady Hillingford on their honeymoon, an old bach¬ 
elor Major keen on reckless adventure, and Miss 
Smith. 

To pass the time they were singing comic songs 
with resounding chorus, which floated out of the 
open windows and echoed strangely from the stony 
hills of the wide stretching barren wilderness that 
lies between Jerico and Jerusalem. 

It was a brilliant night with a huge silver moon 
at the full hanging in the sky above sending it§ 
floods of light down upon the lonely waste, in which 
there was no tree nor flower nor bird: yet something 
moved at intervals, a curious low fourfooted shape 
with sloping spine and coat so cunningly contrived in 
spots and lines of brown and white that it matched 
exactly the patchy, stony hills and clefts and crannies 
amongst the rocks through which the creatures flit¬ 
ted with their elusive movements. 

The exhilarated crowd within the carriage took no 


1 


2 


THE BEATING HEART 


notice except one, Miss Smith who was always an 
exception to whatever the rest might do or be. 

The supper at the Jerico Inn before their start 
had been good with copious libations of the rich 
Greek wine and now Melisande’s golden head was 
leaning on Hillingford’s shoulder while she shrilled 
out the chorus from her coral mouth and the mil¬ 
lionaire’s arm was round Lady Hillingford’s neck 
and the Greek wine no doubt was to blame if she 
was too confused to notice it wasn’t her husband’s 
arm. The old Major was frankly overcome and 
curled up in a quiescent ball in his corner of the 
great roomy old carriage, only Miss Smith sat quiet 
and sedate in her grey travelling dress watching the 
shapes flitting among the rocks in the moonlight. 
They were hyaenas Miss Smith knew what they 
were. She was not intoxicated, she was not sleepy. 
She was not singing comic songs. She sat up 
straight, alert and watchful. 

Her companions did not heed her. They gener¬ 
ally left her alone recognizing that while with them 
§he was not of them. At the same time they did not 
object to her. No one ever objected to Miss Smith. 
They teased her goodnaturedly because she never 
drank, smoked, flirted nor swore as they did and 
used to read and study dingy brown books in the 
queer languages of the country and she as good- 
naturedly smiled and continued to pursue her own 
quiet way. Among other women she was generally 
passed over and ignored and considered unattractive 
because she was generally termed “good” and in 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 3 

these days to be a good woman, is not attractive. A 
beautiful woman, a fast woman, a fascinating 
woman, a wicked woman, any adjective almost, 
sounds interesting but good no. So once having 
dubbed her good everyone let her alone and she was 
allowed to wear her crown of Virtue unchallenged 
and undisturbed. 

In person she was rather tall and slender and 
affected quiet well-fitting tailor made clothes. Her 
hair was of a warm brown shade and very thick but 
so quietly done, pressed close to her small head that 
no one looked twice at it while the frizzed out gold¬ 
en curls, now getting thin from over much dying 
that flared in a halo round Melisande’s head drew 
every eye. Miss Smith’s skin was cool and pale, her 
eye grave and grey a different thing altogether from 
the sunny saucy laughing blue beloved by man. Yet 
the eye had beauty in its calm repose like a clear 
deep pool in a shady wood. She was 36 though she 
looked only about 26 and her present and future 
had been kindly settled for her as old maid by her 
friends. When she had first joined the touring 
party, both the married men had attempted to flirt 
with her after the way of married men but Miss 
Smith did not care for flirtations with married men 
and did not want the attentions of the old bachelor 
Major Mitchell who gallantly offered them. What 
she did want was locked up in her own soul. 

She had been proposed to at 16 and had accepted. 
He was a young man her father’s secretary. The 
engagement had pursued a tranquil and as Miss 


4 


THE BEATING HEART 


Smith privately thought a disappointing course until 
one evening when as he was leaving her after much 
long and as she thought boring conversation, she 
ventured to whisper softly as he took her hand in 
farewell “Kiss me.” 

Instantly she was enfolded in his arms and a kiss 
pressed upon her lips, not an irreverent one but one 
full of force and electric fire and pressed down so 
hard that her lips were painfully crushed upon her 
teeth, under it. When he let her go suddenly she 
was absolutely white dazed and breathless and in¬ 
voluntarily sank down on the chair nearest her. 

The young man’s face was white too as they 
stared for a moment at each other in silence. Not 
a word was spoken. He retreated silently, swiftly 
to the door and vanished through it. She sat still 
where she was until the beating of her heart grew 
calmer and allowed her to get up. Then as the 
sense of physical shock passed she smiled. That had 
been delightful! That was Life ! That was Love! 
That moment compensated her for the preceding 
boring weeks of her engagement. In that moment 
she had had her first insight into that stupendous joy 
that we share with the animals and primitive man 
alike. Perverted, degraded, chained and beaten 
down out of sight, as the sexual instinct is by civiliza¬ 
tion, there are still moments like these of innocent 
youthful joy in which we see the face of Nature for 
an instant and realise her tremendous power. 

Little Christine Smith went to bed that night pro¬ 
foundly happy. Engagements were not stupid after 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 5 


all. Life was not all dullness. Poets and novelists 
were right. There was something in existence which 
was marvelous and golden and glowing and it was 
love. She adored her fiance now. Had he not in 
that electric wonderful kiss shown her the majestic 
Force that he represented? It was overaweing, in¬ 
spiring. All night she dreamt innocently happily of 
the kiss that had lifted her to heaven. In the morn¬ 
ing there was a letter from him. 

Trembling and flushing she had carried it to her 
room to read alone. His prayer no doubt to her 
to hasten their marriage so that there might be more 
and more and more of those heavenly moments. But 
the letter was not that. It was an apology. A craving 
of pardon for that kiss. A promise that if forgiven 
he would never, never ever again. Christine could 
not understand. Grown cold and white she read 
that astounding letter over and over again and the 
more she read it the less she understood it. What 
did he mean? What was wrong? Why was the 
kiss wrong? It was not, her common sense told 
her that. It had been just the revelation of his love 
for her in all its splendid strength and ardour and 
she loved him for it, and now here was this stupid 
letter in which he painted himself as a sort of crim¬ 
inal. She was dumbfounded. But one thing was 
clear. He evidently thought the kiss was very 
wicked and if she did not agree then he would think 
her very wicked also. Christine sat very still and 
cold thinking, the gay mirage that Nature had flung 
all about her dissipated and gone. Her primitive 


6 THE BEATING HEART 

I 

instincts urged her to go to him and tell him he was 
mistaken. The kiss was Right and he must take her in 
his arms and kiss her again and again in exactly the 
same way give her again that wonderful glimpse of 
a golden and rosecoloured world of ecstasy. But 
civilised i6 is rather shy. Christine shrank from 
facing that cold condemnation that was in the letter, 
turned upon herself. It seemed so impossible to ex¬ 
plain, to find the words to fit all those myriad feel¬ 
ings leaping within herself. She was afraid he 
would not understand. 

At last after hours of thought she folded the let¬ 
ter ^nd put it away. He had said he would come 
that evening to hear her say she forgave him. She 
decided she must say nothing but extend to him her 
pardon as he desired. 

For months the engagement went on. Christine 
secretly hoped that once again his feelings might 
betray him and that glorious moment come again 
but it never did. 

The engagement was finally broken off and not by 
him. Christine told him gently that she feared they 
hardly understood each other well enough for mar¬ 
riage. 

The young man mournfully and humbly accepted 
her decree. To this day he believes that it was 
that fatal moment (to her so ecstatic) that was his 
undoing. 

There had been several engagements since then 
on the same dull formal lines and terminated in the 
same way by her. They had not contained any whir- 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 7 


ling moments such as the one she had experienced 
and for the return of which she waited confidently 
as an astronomer for the return of a comet. This 
time when it came . . . 

Meanwhile she was not unhappy. She was strong 
and fleet of foot and clear of eye. She had perfect 
health in a splendid well knit frame and life was 
sweet and all the days of this tour through Palestine 
had been very bright and fair. 

She had enjoyed especially this just finished visit 
to Jerico, going down from Jerusalem in the early 
summer when the heat was so deadly that not a soul 
except their own reckless party would venture down 
there. 

The Hotel keeper at Jerusalem had begged them 
not to go! The season for it was over the heat 
far too great but they had laughed at him. They 
had been so cooked they declared a temperature of 
110° could not frighten them and the idea of going 
down down to the scorching plain of Jerico, to the 
borders of the Dead Sea beneath which lay the sin¬ 
ful Cities of the Plain had a delightful fascination 
in it. 

The road the landlord urged was extremely dan¬ 
gerous. It lay through the wilderness and at this 
time the Bedouin Arabs were travelling up and 
down. Caravans and long lines of them fully armed 
might be met at any point. If go they must an 
escort of two armed soldiers would be provided for 
them by the Government. What would be the good 
of two soldiers against a band of robbers? Hilling- 


THE BEATING HEART 


ford had asked and the landlord had explained “If 
you have Turkish soldiers with you, no matter how 
few, it shows you are under the protection of the 
Sultan of Turkey the head of their religion the 
Sheik-Islam: they will not lift a hand against their 
own chief. No one will touch you.” 

The party consented to take the escort but at the 
last moment it did not arrive and they would not 
wait. Finally to the sound of lamentations from 
their host, they drove away, in the capacious vehicle 
with a good pair of horses and a single unarmed man 
as driver. They went by night to avoid the blinding 
heat of the sun and here they were returning by 
night,by moonlight and the moonlight that falls on 
the plain of Jerico and on the stony wilderness 
around it is as hot as English sunlight. The party 
were well pleased with their visit they had enjoyed it 
especially Miss Smith. She had liked the journey 
down down into the simmering bowl of heat, at the 
bottom of which lay the rich verdant tree filled 
plain of Jerico and the sparkling blue Salt Lake 
called the Dead Sea. 

The Jerico Inn kept by a Greek where they stayed 
was a low white building of immensely thick walls 
and almost hidden from view under the shade of a 
gigantic fig tree whose wide spreading massive thick 
leaved boughs filled the court yard with deep deli¬ 
cious shadow green and cool. Here, on their arrival 
after midnight they had sat and supped at a table 
neatly spread with bread and cheese and fruit and 
great jars of honey and the rich heady wines of 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 9 


Greece and while the others had rioted and jested 
and laughed and kissed Miss Smith had sat gazing 
up through the fig leaves to where between them 
here and there a great planet burned fircely in the 
sky uneclipsed even by the silver light of the moon. 
She was enjoying it all in her deep calm soul. The 
next morning the rioters slept late in the cool stone 
chambers of the inn, but she was up while the larks 
were singing overhead and the whole fair plain of 
Jerico was smiling in fresh dew and early light. 
Alone and unafraid and unmolested she found her 
way down to the edge of the sparkling sea, undressed 
and bathed in its wonderful blue and limpid waters 
that would not let her sing and clung round her 
snowy throat and limbs like the heaviest thickest oil. 

Miss Smith thought of all these things now in 
pleasant retrospect as the carriage lumbered along 
slowly up the stony road between the hills. 

Suddenly a sharp sound the crack of a rifle came 
stinging through the silence, followed by a terrible 
thud in front of the carriage. Their driver, doubled 
up in a sort of ball, fell from his seat and then 
rolled heavily to the ground, the reins still in his 
hands. The horses plunged and shied a little as his 
body fell close by their heels, but they were too 
hot and weary in that long upward climb to run 
away. They were startled frightened, something 
had happened but fatigue was greater than any other 
feeling. They stopped dead still with heaving 
sweating sides. 

The instant the carriage stopped, the occupants 


10 


THE BEATING HEART 


who had by now sung themselves into a state of 
lethargy, woke up with a shock and the men began 
to get out. Miss Smith had descended on her side 
and was first at the side of the fallen driver. 

Miss Smith knew all about first aid and she saw 
here there ^vas no aid to be given. The man was 
dead. The old Major came to her side. He also 
knew death when he saw it. “God bless me!” he 
ejaculated. “This is dreadful, poor fellow! Poor 
fellow! What’s it all mean, eh?” 

Miss Smith did not answer, she was looking 
through the silver space to a long broken line of 
rocks some 200 yards away. From these, men were 
running up to them. In a few moments it seemed 
the carriage in which the two women still sat, 
huddled together, was surrounded by a circle of 
Bedouin Arabs. Each one carried a rifle in one hand 
and a short knife was thrust into the broad sash 
folded many times round their waist. 

Thought is very quick and Miss Smith had time 
to think even in that alarming moment how hand¬ 
some and picturesque a crowd they were. Their 
dark faces were finely carved and featured with bril¬ 
liant flashing eyes and teeth. On their heads they 
wore what looked like two enormous rolls of col¬ 
oured cord, deep red and blue, forming a sort of 
turban and falling in a twist on their shoulders at 
the back. A vest of coloured silk and purple 
Zouave jacket, wide sash and cartridge belt, and 
loose crimson trousers to somewhat below the knee 
made up a costume worn with extraordinary grace 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS ii 


on beautiful and stately figures of about average 
height. These men were not specially tall but ex¬ 
tremely lithe and well proportioned. They closed 
round the little English group as leopards encircle 
antelope. Two of them between them carried the 
soft limp body of a shot hyaena. They laid it down 
by the body of the driver. Miss Smith stooped for 
a moment and stroked softly the exquisite white fur 
on its chest. Then she straightened herself and 
looked round on the circle of eager dark faces and 
asked them in Arabic what they wanted. 

And then the whole English party realised that 
they were helpless and useless in this emergency ex¬ 
cept for this slim quiet serene person, whom they had 
laughed at and ignored. She was now the mistress 
of the situation. Their lives and safety lay in her 
hands. They could only stand by gaping helplessly 
while she, thanks to her dingey brown books, par¬ 
leyed with their enemies. 

It looked as if they were in an appalling mess 
and they depended on her now to get them out of it. 
The women in the carriage put scared white faces 
out of the window. 

“What do they say, the scoundrels?” querried the 
Major after Christine in her musical voice had ex¬ 
changed some sentences with the leader. To Major 
Mitchell the best man living, if he had a dark skin, 
was always a scoundrel. 

“He says they had no intention of killing our 
driver,” she replied, “but a shot richoshetted from a 
rock that was aimed at a hyaena.” 


12 


THE BEATING HEART 


“Oh come that’s good!” said Hillingford, “well 
then can they help us to get on anywhere?” 

“You must remember that is what they say^^ she 
returned calmly and then she resumed conversing 
with the Arab leader, while the women in the car¬ 
riage shivered in the heat and the English men 
cursed themselves inwardly for having come without 
the Government guard. The millionaire stole close 
to Christine’s side. “Offer them anything, anything^ 
a thousand, ten thousand, if we get safely back to 
Jerusalem.” he whispered shakily. Christine turned 
her clear eyes upon him. “I do not think money 
is what they want” she replied regarding him 
steadily. What she thought they did want she did 
not say. 

John Briggs, millionaire, stepped back, white 
under his Eastern sunburn. His money had 
smoothed out most ruts in his life. Was it going to 
fail him now? He glanced at the other two men 
and it was three very pinched looking faces that 
stared at each other in the moonlight, while the long 
glistening barrels of the rifles held by the Arabs 
sides, almost touched them as the circle drew nearer 
and the dark eager countenances with their glittering 
eyes and teeth came thrusting themselves close up 
to their shoulders. 

“Ugly business Jack” muttered Hillingford. 

“Scoundrels” repeated the Major whose vocabu¬ 
lary was limited, clenching his fists. 

“This is just what the landlord said. Fools we 
were not to take his advice.” said Briggs savagely. 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 13 


Then they were silent. Christine had finished a 
long talk with the leading Arab and had now turned 
to them. 

“They say they don’t want money nor anything 
we have with us. That they are not robbers and that 
the shooting of our driver was an accident. As they 
have killed him however, they can do nothing with¬ 
out their Sheik’s orders. He is called Sheik Lasrali 
and he has a tent pitched some distance from here 
in the wilderness and we must all go there with them 
and hear his orders.” 

“What cheek! The scoundrels,” burst out the 
Major. Christine’s even brows contracted a little. 

“Do be careful Major and control yourself,” she 
said, “We are in a bad enough position as it is, don’t 
make it worse.” 

“How are we to get to this Lasr-ali?” asked Hill- 
ingford. 

“We must walk,” returned Christine and he 
thought how well she showed up, standing there in 
the moonlight, wholly undismayed, quite calm and 
mistress of herself and talking easily and clearly that 
difficult guttteral tongue which he had given up 
studying in despair. 

“We have no driver” she went on “and if we 
had the carriage couldn’t go over that rough ground. 
It would be overturned directly. We have got to go 
back some distance in that direction. She pointed far 
back across the stony waste towards the plain of 
Jerico whence they had come and the travellers 
groaned involuntarily. To go back! Further away 


14 


THE BEATING HEART 


from the city with its law and order and protection, 
further into this savage desolation where the moon¬ 
light showed nothing but rocks and stones where 
even the rough rocky grass struggled in vain for 
existence and here and there bleached bones showed 
whitely on the ground. 

“There is no help for it” she said merely and 
turned to the carriage. The women in it were 
sitting white faced and silent but like English 
women faced with grave emergency their courage 
rose to meet it. There was no complaint, no shrink¬ 
ing back. They opened the door of the carriage 
and stepped down on to the stony ground without 
a word. 

The vehicle was packed in all its corners with 
small handbags and cases, extra cloaks and wraps 
and sunshades. The Arabs peered in curiously jab¬ 
bering amongst themselves. There was a hasty 
consultation between the travellers as to whether 
they could carry anything with them. The Gaiety 
girl, Melisande, prayed for her handbag. It had all 
her make up in it. Lady Hillingford could not bear 
parting from her small flat case. Hillingford hastily 
opened his bag and extracted his favorite razor. 
Miss Smith went to hers and pulled out her Arabic 
dictionary. 

“Don’t take much,” she advised. “It’s so hot and 
we have a long way to walk. The Arabs are going 
to leave a guard and the carriage and all its con¬ 
tents will be perfectly safe. I have told them we 
must take the horses out and take them with us. 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 15 


The Sheik will have water and food and rest when 
we get there.” 

While the women fussed over their luggage, 
anxious as human beings always are about trifles even 
with the great issues of life and death hanging over 
them, and the Arabs sat down a little way off watch¬ 
ing them with an amused smile curling their dark 
lips and their rifles held across their knees, the three 
men and Christine stood for a moment together at 
the horses’ heads. 

“I wonder whether we’re wise,” Hillingford 
asked, “in giving in like this? Suppose we said we 
would not go?” 

“The alternative is for us all to sit here under a 
guard while two of the Arabs go off with a message 
to the Sheik and ask for orders.” Christine an¬ 
swered, she had evidently discussed this with the 
chief already, “but you see he might be ages coming 
back. Perhaps he wouldn’t come till the morning 
and we’d get awfully tired waiting here and the 
horses would get no water. Then he says the Sheik 
would be sure to send for us, so we’d have to go 
in the end.” 

“Why should he send for us, damn him?” This 
from the Major. 

“The leader says he would not mind the men go¬ 
ing on but he would be sure to want to see the three 
ladies!” 

“Scoundrel!” shouted the Major. 

“I think we had better go and make no trouble 


16 THE BEATING HEART 

about it,” said Christine, “we may be able to reason 
things out with Lasrali.” 

The men nodded. There seemed no way out. An 
Arab came up and took out the two horses, weary 
and dejected with the long toil. Christine patted 
their necks and the Arab led them off the roadway. 
Next came another Arab strung about with various 
small articles belonging to the English that he had 
been deputed to carry by the leader. Hillingford 
and his wife followed, then Briggs and Melisande, 
then the Major and Christine and this small column 
of English was flanked on each side by a guard of 
six Arabs. 

Christine turned and glanced back as they were 
starting. Two motionless Arabs sat on the box seat 
of the carriage, their rifles on their knees. Side 
by side on the ground lay the dead driver and the 
dead hyaena mingling their blood in a small dark 
pool on the road. 

Out into the wilderness. Away from even the 
road, that wild desolate and inhospitable as it is, 
has at least, each end in civilization. But in the 
wilderness itself that stretches between the proud 
city of Jerusalem and the fair plain of Jerico there 
one can see the face of Loneliness itself and feel 
Starvation and Death lurking among those never 
ending ridges of whitish rock rising from the arid, 
waterless plain. The African desert with its soft 
films of sand, its glorious mirage seems homelike by 
contrast with it. The American desert with un¬ 
broken miles of sagebrush and its alkali pools seems 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 17 


inviting ground in comparison. In the wilderness 
there is nothing but solitude and stone and hyaenas 
grown fat on the corpses of wayfarers. 

Doggedly and in silence the little party went on. 
The two wives in their thin high heeled shoes and 
silk stockings suffered most. The men and Christine 
walked easily on flat heels over the loose stones and 
uneven surface. But no one of them made any 
sound of discontent. Melisande and Eva Hilling- 
ford stumbled along awkwardly and painfully but 
bravely and the curls on their forehead and the silk 
blouses on their chests were soaked through with 
sweat in the hot still air. 

Apprehension as to their possible fate had got its 
teeth well into them now. Leaving the road, their 
only friend and guide, had brought them to a sense 
of their utter helplessness. Even if left now un¬ 
molested, they could not find their way back to it, 
they could only wander about amongst these ever¬ 
lasting gleaming rocks, each one exactly like another 
till they died. 

After a little while physical fatigue and pain shut 
out much reflection on other things. They were 
intolerably thirsty and their limbs ached from that 
curious rough walking similar to going up hill on an- 
English beach. The Arabs were not inconsiderate 
and did not even hurry them. Only once when the 
Major lagged behind one of the guard pressing on 
their heels poked the nuzzle of a rifle against his 
shoulder blades. After that, rather than have it 
happen again, he stepped out more briskly. 


i8 


THE BEATING HEART 


The first light of the dawn showed faintly in the 
East, when the Arab leader pointed out to the white 
weary crowd toiling on some large dark objects not 
very far away. 

“Lasrali’s tents,” he said. 

It seemed as they came nearer quite a large en¬ 
campment altogether a great number of tents pitched 
near to a ridge of rock which slightly overhanging 
made a sort of rough shed. Against this were 
grouped various animals, camels, horses, donkeys 
and goats, some lying down others standing round a 
heap of fodder put down for them. Christine went 
forward and spoke earnestly with the Arab leading 
the horses: making him promise to allow them to 
lie down and to give them plenty of food and water 
as they could take it. He laughed showing all his 
glittering teeth in the bright moonlight. 

“Lasrali would be very angry with me if I .did 
not look after them. He loves horses.” What a 
relief those words carried to her mind. A man 
who loved horses could not be wholly bad. She fell 
back and told the good news to the others. They 
were just on the outside of the encampment now. 
Most of its occupants had retired apparently, but a 
long line of cooking fires burnt redly still upon the 
ground. The chief man who had so far all along 
spoken with Christine, gave his charges over to the 
guard and disappeared into the largest of the tents 
to know his master’s wishes. It was only a few 
minutes before he returned and ushered them all in. 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 19 


holding back the tent flaps for them and then bring¬ 
ing up the rear himself. 

It was a large and roomy tent well carpeted and 
with masses of silken cushions lying about. Also 
there were little tables at which if sitting on a 
cushion on the floor, one could comfortably write 
and read. 

Lasrali himself was seated in one of those capa¬ 
cious black wood chairs inlaid with mother of pearl, 
so familiar in Damascus. Wearing a snow white 
burnous, edged with gold embroidery and a gold 
band encircling the hood of it, just above his black 
brows he presented a kingly and dignified appear¬ 
ance. His face was handsome in the typical Arab 
way. Olive skinned and oval with refined aristo¬ 
cratic features and large dark eyes. In age he 
appeared about 38. In one rather white and slender 
hand a held a long stemmed pipe which he appeared 
to have been peacefully smoking when disturbed. 

As soon as the worn weary captives were ushered 
in, he rose from his seat, bowed slightly and then 
immediately resumed it, ordering one of his Arabs 
to bring forward cushions for his visitors. When 
these were brought the three women sank down 
gratefully upon them, the men taking their stand 
behind them until Lasrali waved them with a more 
decided gesture to be seated also. Then he called 
up the leader to stand beside him, and set himself 
to listen attentively to the man’s story, pulling occa¬ 
sionally at his pipe and asking now and then a quiet 
question. 


20 


THE BEATING HEART 


The Arab leader went on with his interminable 
relation for endless time as it seemed to the wearied 
English. With the exception of Miss Smith, they 
could none of them understand a word and they were 
so dazed and sleepy with heat and fatigue that the 
conversation came to their ears only in an unmean¬ 
ing blur. Christine was tired too, but her head was 
clear and she sat bright eyed and upright on her 
cushion listening intently to every word that was 
uttered. Much of the conversation’s meaning she 
missed of course. It is impossible for a stranger 
however well he knows a language to catch all that 
passes between two others, not addressing him but 
talking rapidly to each other, but the drift of it 
she gathered very well. At one time when the 
leader said something as to money she took her 
courage in both hands and ventured to re-inforce 
his statement. 

“There is a gentleman here,” she said, indicating 
Briggs, “who will pay anything you like to ask in 
money for our release.” 

Lasrali regarded her in silence but did not reply 
and the leader turned on her saying: 

“My master is very rich man, he does not seek 
money. He might be pleased however to take a 
white wife.” 

“The dream of my life has been to win a white 
woman who is also a lady,” supplemented Lasrali 
in a very low tone, “no sum of money can weigh 
against such a dream.” 

Christine did not translate any of these sentences 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 21 


into English. They sank into her heart and set it 
beating. In defiance of something within her that 
seemed holding her back, she seized hold of the old 
phrases and stated them as one who speaks from a 
sense of duty. 

“The English are a mighty people. We are few 
but if any of us are injured, a great army will come 
to avenge us.” 

She thought she saw the faint flicker of a smile 
pass over Lasrali’s face that he was too courteous 
to wholly indulge in. The leader was not so cere¬ 
monious however. He laughed openly. 

“Your country used to be great and protect its 
subjects. It is too lazy to do that now. Besides 
my master cannot be found in his native mountains 
and the captive men would be killed and scattered 
to the winds of heaven long before help came and 
the captive women would be—” 

The expression made the blood fly flaming all over 
Christine’s face and Lasrali sharply reprimanded 
the Arab leader. 

“Do not talk to the lady at all,” he said with 
anger. “Confine your conversation to me,” and 
he motioned him to come closer to* his chair. 

After a long discussion between them Lasrali at 
last waved him to one side and addressing Christine 
direct; asked her and the other two ladies to get up 
and approach him. This they did, Christine spring¬ 
ing up at once and the other two wearily dragging 
themselves to their feet. Then they stood in a line 
before him and the Arab regarded them all with 


22 


THE BEATING HEART 


grave attentive eyes. Dusty and tired, with rumpled 
hair and damp faces, in their rather bright coloured 
clothes, hatless and with arms and necks bare in the 
intense heat, neither Lady Hillingford who was 25 
and pale and dark, nor Melisande who had no age 
and was of the flamboyant type, looked their best 
and being conscious of this did not improve matters 
by their expressions. Melisande trying to get up her 
footlight smile and Lady Hillingford frankly weary 
and disdainful. It was on Christine that the Arab’s 
quiet gaze rested longest. Trim, elegant, appar¬ 
ently untired, her clear pale skin rendered still paler 
by the heat, her large eyes burning with keen interest 
and power, her lips, glowing red, her thick hair 
unruffled in its soft close waves about her head, she 
certainly presented the most pleasing aspect of the 
three. Her gaze was fixed unwaveringly upon the 
handsome face turned to her. She looked exactly 
what she felt, intensely interested. After a length¬ 
ened survey which was in no way rude nor impudent, 
only evidently extremely critical and observant of 
the minutest details, he turned to his attendant and 
told him to conduct all the English to a private tent 
and look after them except the lady who spoke 
Arabic and she should follow them directly. Chris¬ 
tine looked at her companions with her cheerful 
smile and translated this adding, “Go ahead and 
leave me. I’ll come as soon as I can.” 

They did not like seeming to desert her, but she 
had become so much their leader and director in the 
last few hours and she seemed so perfectly unafraid 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 23 


of the whole situation that they solemnly filed out 
after the Arab in silence. 

The tent was now empty except for the handsome 
seated form and herself standing before him, a 
slender, graceful English figure in her simple grey 
clothes. The light from the great swinging center 
lamp fell on her thick brown hair and showed a 
soft wavering colour in her cheeks as she gazed 
steadily at her captor. She felt no fear as she 
heard the others withdraw. She did not know what 
was going to happen to her, no word in the long 
conversation had indicated what her fate might be 
and she knew herself absolutely defenceless but her 
whole mind had been seized as it were by a great 
expectancy and there was no room for any other 
feeling. Physically she was in those moments in¬ 
tensely alive: every sense seemed at its highest 
power. Her eyes took in every detail of the face 
and form opposite her, her ears were conscious of 
the faintest rustle and click of the curtain behind 
her as they fell to shutting her in, her nostrils 
quivered to the strange scent of tobacco and camel, 
coffee and wood fire, in the tent. Her whole being 
seemed rising on tip-toe to go forward to something 
she did not know. Lasrali rose from his seat and 
approached her. She did not retreat. Then in a 
single sweep of his arm he had drawn her close up 
to his breast, he bent his head and pressed his lips 
down hard on hers. 

Then suddenly she knew that here now. whirling 
down upon her through the space of twenty years. 


24 


THE BEATING HEART 


was again the wonderful moment she had known at 
16 and never refound. It was here now. It was 
hers again. Her head was pressed back on his arm. 
She could not move. Again the pain on her mouth. 
Again the realization of being in the presence of a 
tremendous Force and that not a destructive but 
an august beneficent force, the constructive force of 
Life itself. Again that glimpse before her eyes of 
something wonderful, something majestic and ut¬ 
terly beyond the petty details of everyday existence. 
For the moment she seemed united to something 
vast, eternal, primaeval, as indeed she was, to the 
Impulse of Life itself that causes the whole uni¬ 
verse to roll on through its countless aeons. Her 
eyes gazed up to the dark beauty of those above her 
but she did not see them with their lids half closed 
over them and the straight black brows contracted 
into one line almost as with severe physical pain 
above them. She saw before her mental vision the 
magnificence of triumphal Life sweeping up towards 
her to engulf her in its stupendous onrush. 

It was only for an instant: She was released sud¬ 
denly and staggered slightly, clutching at the central 
tent pole for support and white and trembling just 
as she had been on that other evening long ago. 
But her eyes were shining still with the joy of the 
vision and she smiled at Lasrali now gravely regard¬ 
ing her. He took her arm and led her up to his 
own vacant chair into which he gently pressed her. 
Then bending over her he began to speak slowly and 
distinctly so that she caught every word. 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 25 


“Listen. I want you. For the others I do not 
care. As you know I am an Arab and not like the 
English supposed to have only one wife. I can have a 
number but as it happens I have none now. If you 
will stay and be my wife, I will let all your com¬ 
panions go. I will give them a driver and a guard 
and they will go safely on their way to Jerusalem. 
Nothing of theirs will be taken and I will send two 
of my Arabs to explain the shooting.” 

He stopped, waiting for her reply and Christine 
in the crisis of her fate seemed suddenly struck 
dumb. The immensity of her feelings, the intense 
desire to express all that was surging up in her 
soul seemed to paralyse her utterance as a volume 
of water gets choked by its own pressure in the 
narrow neck of a vessel from which it is struggling 
to escape. She, the glib interpreter for others, she, 
the student who had read Arab poetry by the hour 
was now tongue tied and silent, unable to utter 
one little word of love or encouragement to the man 
bending over her. She thought the beauty of his 
face so perfect, its expression now so infinitely soft 
and tender, that she longed to throw her arms about 
his neck and tell him that she loved him and would 
those words have been any less true, any more ex¬ 
aggerated an expression than when an English 
society girl says, “I love you,” to a man she is going 
to marry, after a three weeks’ engagement? 

Rather, the truth of it was so intense in Chris¬ 
tine’s case and the realisation of it so overaweing 
that her lips were locked and her limbs seemed inert. 


26 


THE BEATING HEART 


She struggled as we struggle in dreams to speak but 
not a single world would come to her aid. She 
could only look and look back to the eyes above her. 
Her dilated, appealing gaze might have been one of 
helpless, fascinated terror and her heart thumping 
so violently in her bosom blanched her face and lips. 

A shade of disappointment came over Lasrali’s 
countenance. 

“You will stay to save your friends?” he repeated 
and Christine managed to force her trembling lips 
to a weak, yes. 

“Aiwa.” 

Lasrali gave a deep sigh as of relief and straight¬ 
ened himself. His face relapsed into its habitual 
gravity as he said: 

“I see you are very frightened but there is no 
need. In my tent you will not be hurt or grieved. 
You will be safe, protected, I believe happy. I shall 
try with all my force to make you so. You are very 
tired now, go and rest; eat and sleep. Peace be 
with you.” 

Again Christine tried to respond but the whole 
view of this love and life so suddenly forced upon 
her seemed too great for her to assimilate and to 
find quickly the suitable words a vehicle for her 
thoughts. And the moment for her to speak and 
accept seemed maliciously to have gone before she 
could grasp it. 

If it was impossible for her to speak while he bent 
over her, his face suffused with tenderness, it seemed 
still more hopeless to do so now when he had drawn 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 27 


a little away and his usual calm and dignity had 
enfolded him. 

She hesitated clasping her hands, not as he fancied 
in supplication to him, but to those unseen powers 
that were holding her, preventing her disclosing her 
feeling towards him. Her mind was staggered and 
as we fail when suddenly we come into view of a 
colossal mountain or a huge giant tree, to summon 
words in which to describe our admiration, because 
words seem so inadequate, so did Christine fail now. 

Lasrali did not touch her again but with a grave 
gesture, waved her to the door of the tent, the 
curtains of which he himself held back that she might 
pass through. 

With a look of intense gratitude, admiration and 
love, which he translated as one of final appeal, she 
passed out and he was left alone. 

;|c 

When Christine entered the other tent, the rest 
of the party were seated in the centre, round a 
piece of carpet on which stood a coffee pot of 
steaming coffee, a jug of goat’s milk, white bread as 
good as in the Jerico hotel and a pile of dates. 

They raised jaded looking enquiring faces to her 
as she joined the circle and sat down. 

“It’s all right. You are quite safe. Give me 
some coffee and I’ll tell you.” 

“Hurrah!” exclaimed Briggs. “Well you are 
splendid. What does he say?” 

“He says, first we must all sleep here and rest 


28 


THE BEATING HEART 


until it’s cool tomorrow afternoon. He will then 
send you all with a good driver and an armed escort 
up to Jerusalem and an Arab who will explain all 
about the shooting and see that the proper people 
are sent after our driver’s body, which will be 
guarded till they come.” She paused and drank up 
her coffee. A relieved sigh rose from the others, 
from all except the Major who would not look 
relieved. He glared fiercely into his coffee cup in 
silence. 

“How wonderful!” said Lady Hillingford. 

“Good fellow,” from her husband. 

“Thank God,” said the millionaire. 

^‘Well, he’s a darling,” declared Melisande. 

Then Christine quietly thrdw her bombshell. 

“Yes, only he says one of the women must stay.” 

“Scoundrel,” shouted the Major, banging his cup 
down on the carpet. 

“Ah, I thought so,” murmured Lady Hillingford 
turning very white. 

The two husbands looked at each other across 
the coffee without a word. 

“Which one does he want?” asked Melisande 
drawing out her little mirror from the bag on her 
lap and puffing out her golden locks at the side of her 
head with her jewelled fingers. 

“Me,” replied Christine. 

exclaimed both ladies at once with an 
emphasis which was not at all complimentary. 

“Yes: seems strange, doesn’t it?” returned Chris¬ 
tine tranquilly, sinking her white even teeth into her 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 29 


dates with keen satisfaction. She was evidently go¬ 
ing to enjoy her supper to the full. 

All eyes turned on her. Her companions stared 
at her in those moments as if they had never seen 
her before. And indeed it was a new Christine 
from the one they had been travelling with. The 
primaeval woman was rising in her in all her strength 
and glory and arming her with new and wonderful 
weapons. In her skin which had a curious trans¬ 
parency was kindled a lovely rose flush, her eyes 
were no longer still dark pools but rather wells of 
moving fire, her lips were redder than Melisande’s 
painted ones. As she sat her slender body rose full 
of proud grace from her cushion seat. 

There was a long pause, full of tension. Some¬ 
how the ladies looked displeased and the men not 
less concerned than before. Melisande was the first 
to break the silence. 

“What did you say?” she asked abruptly as Chris¬ 
tine continued to eat calmly and cheerfully. 

“Said I’d stay.” 

“Said you would stay?” gasped the men together. 

“Yes, of course. I wasn’t going to get you all 
shot and Eva and Sandy kept as prisoners as well 
as myself. I didn’t see the use.” 

“Oh, but look here, we can’t stand this,” broke 
out Hillingford. “Do you think we could go back 
and save ourselves at your expense like that?” 

“Well, what would you propose?” asked Chris¬ 
tine pouring more milk into her coffee. 


30 


THE BEATING HEART 


“Er—well, I—er—don’t know—I should think 
they’d never dare to—to—” he stopped. 

“I don’t know either but they might dare a good 
lot. I heard a great many cheering references to 
“Dead men tell no tales,” while the leader was 
talking to him. He seemed to think it was a splen¬ 
did plan for you three men to be shot and then for 
Lasrali to disappear into the wilderness with us three 
women after duly rewarding his faithful followers 
with our horses, carriage, bags, and jewelry and 
burying the driver under a rock. It sounded a most 
engaging programme and I was afraid each minute 
Lasrali would accept it. But he wouldn’t.” 

“Did you offer him all he liked to ask if he would 
let us all go?” asked Briggs. 

“I did and he said it had been the dream of his 
life to—to marry a white woman and a lady and he 
would not give it up for any amount of money.” 

“Scoundrel,” exclaimed the Major. 

“Did you say that although we seemed a small 
party we had all the power of England and the law 
behind us and he would certainly suffer very much 
if he injured us?” 

“I did: and he said England wasn’t much good 
now and didn’t protect her people worth a cent. 
Besides which nobody could possibly get at him in 
the wilderness until—until, well, until he’d realised 
his dream.” 

“Devil! Devil!” shouted the Major who had at 
last got on to another word. 

The others all sat pale and silent. The tre- 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 31 

mendous end of their journey to the Dead Sea taken 
so thoughtlessly and gaily was coming close up to 
them now and appalled them. 

It was Hillingford who spoke first. 

“I don’t know what you others think about it but 
personally I feel I’d rather stay here and be shot 
than save myself at a woman’s expense. Damn it, 
I say, we can!t go back and leave you here.” 

“Our wives, Hillingford, our wives, we’ve got to 
think of them,” murmured Briggs. He doubtless 
did think of his wife, but also somewhere at the 
back of his mind he had the feeling that Eternal 
Justice would be better satisfied by Miss Smith be¬ 
coming an Arab’s bride than by John Briggs with 
all his millions being murdered in the wilderness. 

“If I know Eva,” Hillingford returned hotly, 
“she’d die here with me rather than sneak out of a 
thing like this.” 

Lady Hillingford looked back at her husband. 
Her face was dead white but she knew what she had 
to do and say and played up to her caste. 

“Certainly, Will, I’ll stay. I have no doubt you 
can finish me with a rock or a knife.” 

Christine looked over to him with a smile in her 
now lovely eyes. Then having finished an excellent 
meal, she sat back on her cushion and wiped her 
pink tipped fingers on her little handkerchief. Then 
she stretched out a small hand to Hillingford. 

“It’s most awfully good of you Lord Hillingford 
and I do appreciate it. But I should simply hate 
for all our lives to be wasted. I should want to 


32 


THE BEATING HEART 


do the same and stay and save you, in any case but 
as it is you needn’t worry at all. You can all go off 
with clear consciences. We came out for adven¬ 
tures and this is the biggest we’ve had. It’s mine 
principally and I’m going to take it. I think Lasrali 
hasn’t been half bad in spite of what the Major 
says. He has very self sacrificingly picked out the 
plainest and least attractive woman simply because 
she’s free and the others have husbands. I like him 
and I’m going to stay and marry him.” 

This was another bombshell amongst them that 
left them gasping. Only Melisande did not seem 
surprised. She watched Christine with a little mali¬ 
cious smile. 

“Good heavens!” was all Hillingford seemed able 
to answer and the distress on his face hardly light¬ 
ened. Briggs was candidly and openly pleased. It 
had been an awful moment for him when he really 
thought Death was coming for him through his 
stockade of money-bags. 

“Very plucky, I call it,” he said, “daring little 
devil, isn’t she Sandy?” 

“Oh, very,” returned Melisande getting out her 
cigarette case and lighting up. 

Suddenly the Major banged both clenched fists 
down on the carpet square making the coffee cups 
dance and jingle. 

“You an English woman going to marry that devil 
2indlikeit. Fough!” 

In his indignation he tried to struggle to his feet 
but being short and fat and seated on a cushion he 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 33 


found this very difficult and nearly rolled over into 
the coffee cups. Christine sprang to her feet and 
offered him her hand. 

“I think we’re all dead tired,” she said, “let’s 
go to bed and talk in the morning.” 

The rest of the circle broke up. They were tired 
beyond all words and got up and approached thank¬ 
fully the great square at the back of the tent where 
rugs were unrolled and a quantity of cushions laid 
out. They ranged themselves in the following 
order. Lady Hillingford, then her husband, then 
the millionaire, then his wife, then next her in the 
outside Miss Smith. The Major would have none 
of them,. He stalked up to the capacious bed and 
took his cushion and small rug. 

“I despise you,” he said in a fierce undertone to 
Miss Smith as he grabbed his pillow. 

“Sorry,” replied Christine and threw herself full 
length beside Melisande. She longed for rest and a 
cessation of talk and discussion, to lie still in the 
darkness and listen to the Voice of Nature in her 
ear and feel the kiss of Life burning on her lips. 

They drew the great rug which they shared in 
common over them, for with the dawn a little chill 
was coming into the air. 

“Put out the light as you pass. Major,” called 
Briggs, and the Major did so throwing his rug 
and cushion down as far from the others as he could 
get. No one spoke any more and sleep came down 
heavily like a great cloud upon them and enfolded 
them. Except (as usual) Christine. Stretched out 


34 THE BEATING HEART 

still and looking into the soft darkness, she lay and 
thought. 

Here after all these years, winging its way to her 
across the gulf of time and space had come again 
the joy she had known when on the threshold of life. 

She had come into the barren desert which gives 
nothing neither shade nor rest nor water nor food, 
and it had given her this. 

How strangely things happened; She had joined 
this touring party, hoping for fun and adventure, 
all the amusing little adventures of travel and sud¬ 
denly she had stumbled into the biggest adventure 
that could happen to her that would change her 
whole life. 

She was, what so very few of us are, free from 
the necessity of consideration for others. She was 
without relations, home or family ties. Without any 
dear ones to regret or that would regret her. In 
the twenty years that had intervened between that 
first engagement and the present time, one by one 
every one that belonged to her or who loved her 
had been taken from her. She had felt the extreme 
loneliness of this grow upon her and had wildly 
resented it at times, but here now she saw that it was 
enviable. Without remorse or regret, she was free 
to accept this great experience, now she had come 
face to face with it. She had nothing to hold her 
nor restrain her from going foiVard to it. There 
was nothing in the life behind her to hold out a 
single detaining hand. She had not even a pet nor 
a house that needed attention and arrangement. 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 35 


She was one of those single women with a sufficient 
income to dress well and live in the best hotels who 
spent her time studying, motoring, dancing, amusing 
herself in all legitimate, civilized ways, travelling 
widely and looking, always looking for something. 
With some of them if they are plain and stupid it is 
love they are looking for, sometimes only a kiss. 
Christine had never had to seek for love and kisses 
she could have had by dozens. It was because she 
was looking for a particular kind of love, a special 
sort of kiss, that the search had been long. 
She did not seek brutality nor cruelty, those are 
totally different from though often confused with 
force, intensity. The real true strength of Love 
that is striving to create Life in a beloved object 
that is what she had been seeking and had now found 
and she could not see that she had to make any 
particular sacrifice for it. She admired the grave 
dignity and beauty of the man himself and she had 
felt that strange sharp call of his individuality to 
hers, which is after all the basis of all love between 
the sexes whether civilized or uncivilized. The one 
quality which to her was one absolute essential in 
any man she was to love, tenderness and kindness to 
animals seemed assured by what his servant had 
said. Had she really known anything more of her 
father’s secretary, than she knew now of Lasrali? 
She could have married him for the sake of that 
golden moment in his arms and she was now going 
to marry Lasrali for exactly the same reason. In 
her eyes it was quite as good a reason as marrying 


3^ 


THE BEATING HEART 


to obtain a house in town, a settled income or a title. 
She saw very clearly that Nature, cruel as she is in 
the deaths, disease, pain and all the woes she sends 
upon us and the animals has yet in her hands for all 
created things this one supreme joy and consolation 
for all the suffering of life, the joy of simple, natural 
unrestrained love. No animals fail to realise this 
and few men and women in a natural state, but in a 
civilized state there are hundreds of thousands who 
live, marry, suffer and die without one glimpse of 
this Eternal Truth. 

So far Christine had steadily avoided marrying 
anyone, between whom and herself there did not 
seem to be that strange wild magnetism, that irre¬ 
sistible call and challenge to the senses, getting out 
of her numerous engagements as best she could and 
submitting to being angrily and furiously called a 
jilt, which she knew was not true. She was simply 
one looking for gold and consistently refusing the 
dross that was pressed upon her in its place. 

Lasrali did not sleep that night. All through 
the remaining hours he sat wide eyed in his chair, 
sometimes drawing at his pipe but more often idle 
staring down at the carpet that kept the stony dust 
of the wilderness from his fine narrow high arched 
feet. A very hardy struggle was going on within 
him and he was fighting bravely against the greatest 
power in the Universe, outside that still greater 
power that has been given to the soul of man. 

Several times his wearied attendant outside raised 
the tent flap a tiny bit and looked in only to see 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 37 


his master still sitting there as a statue, lost in 
thought. 

It is absurd to limit the good and bad impulses 
in man by any creed, caste, or colour. The human 
soul has no such limits. Nobleness, generosity, self- 
sacrifice, dwell indiscriminately in black, yellow, red, 
and white races alike. Evil, also is scattered im¬ 
partially through the whole of humanity as witness 
the loathsome cruelties and barbarities committed 
by men of our own time and race under the name of 
Scientific Research which surpass in horror any¬ 
thing done by savage tribes. 

At last when the morning was fairly on its way, 
he summoned his Arab. 

“Are the English still sleeping?” 

“Yes, they all sleep very soundly; a good time to 
kill the men now if you wish.” 

Lasrali lifted his hand in protest, his brows con¬ 
tracting. 

“Listen. When the English wake, take them 
water for washing and all they need. Then a good 
meal. While they eat, come and rouse me if I 
should be sleeping. When they finish their meal, 
bring them here to me.” 

The Arab bowed and went away muttering. Las¬ 
rali, exhausted, passed through the curtains to his 
inner tent to sleep. 

Although Christine had slept less than the others 
she was the first to awake, when the light was sink¬ 
ing in the tent and the flush of sunset was stealing 
over the wilderness, softening all its grim, glaring 


38 


THE BEATING HEART 


whiteness. She looked round with a feeling of sur¬ 
prise that the day had vanished, they had slept it 
away. It seemed strange to be waking to the rose 
of sunset instead of the rose of dawn as she was 
accustomed to do. She lifted herself from the rugs 
and looked at the sleepers beside her. Hillingford 
was the only one whose eyes were open and as he 
met her glance he smiled and as if by common con¬ 
sent they both rose, very quietly so as not to disturb 
the others and went out of the tent together, passing 
by the Major still soundly asleep by the door. 

The encampment outside was an animated scene, 
cooking fires were sparkling everywhere and Arabs 
coming and going between them preparing the eve¬ 
ning meal. The line of camels and other animals 
were feeding leisurely under their rock shelter, all 
the tent doors were open except the great double 
one, really two tents, joined together, one behind 
the other, which belonged to Lasrali. Of these the 
door flaps were closed and fastened and two Arabs 
sat on the ground before them. 

Christine looked out on it all curiously and smelt 
the scent of the wood fires rising in the hot still 
air with a curious leaping of the heart. Why is it 
that the scent of the camp fire affects all or nearly 
all mankind with a strange feeling like nostalgia? 
Is it because on its fragrance our senses are borne 
back to primaeval times when our first camp fires 
smoked in the untamed forest? 

She glanced across to Lasrali’s tent and the sight 
of its closed door struck her with a sense of loneli- 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 39 

ness. Her life henceforth would lean upon him. 
This scene that she looked upon would be its outside 
shell but there was nothing in it that she cared about 
except himself. 

She turned to Hillingford who stood beside her. 
The Arabs about them glanced at them sideways, 
but the Mahomedan from his earliest years is taught 
not to stare and the long dark eyes were drooped 
again immediately over boiling kettle, or rice bowl 
as if they had seen nothing unusual. 

“There are just one or two things I should like 
you to do for me,” she said gently, “if you will.” 

“Of course, I will, anything,” he returned gazing 
at her in the soft rose light that fell all about them 
from the tinted sky. How wonderfully well she was 
looking he thought with no toilet made nor adjuncts 
of any kind. He did not realise how the great force 
of expectant life was awakened and moving within 
her, painting her cheeks and lips, kindling and soften¬ 
ing her eyes. 

“You know I have no near relations,” she went 
on, “so there’s no one to see or to tell about me, 
but I should like the money I have to be safe¬ 
guarded. Will you be my trustee and look after it 
for me? And re-invest the income, so that in the 
future, if there should be any—any, well if it’s 
wanted it will be there. In my bag when you go 
back to the carriage you will find a small packet 
of all my papers, bank book, check book, etc. Will 
you take possQssion of it. That will give you 
all the details. And send me back by one of the 


40 


THE BEATING HEART 


Arabs my little case of clothes. I shall want that 
here.” 

“I’ll do anything and everything,” he returned, 
“but you must authorize me about the money here,” 
and he drew out his pocket book and gave it to her. 
“Write down there that you wished me to act for 
you. Here’s a pen.” He gave her his own stylo- 
graphic and she looked at it for a moment in silence. 

“Isn’t this all funny? Doing this civilized sort of 
business out here in this wilderness. What an end 
we have had to our tour!” 

“Yes, it’s awful,” groaned Hillingford, “I shall 
never forgive myself or feel the same again.” Chris¬ 
tine had seated herself on a great stone and was 
writing rapidly in the pocket book ail that she 
thought was necessary. When it was done, she 
handed up the book and pen to him. 

“Will that do?” 

Hillingford read it through. 

“That’s all right,” he said and shut the book and 
replaced it. “But we shall send after you and rescue 
you as soon as we get back.” 

Christine still seated put her hand round her knees 
and stared over the small space that intervened to 
the closed tent door of Lasrali. 

“Do you remember your Roman History?” she 
said slowly after a minute. “You remember how 
the Romans carried off the Sabine women and how 
after a time the Sabine husbands and fathers came 
after them to rescue them and the Sabine women 
came out and said they were happy with their Roman 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 41 


husbands and didn’t want to be rescued? It was too 
late. Well it’s the same now. I am sure it will 
be too late. Besides this I am a sort of hostage. 
If you come after me to rescue me I believe you 
won’t find me because Lasrali will go far, far away 
in the mountains and hide.” 

“But surely he could be found. We could get 
an army to scour the place,” remonstrated Hilling- 
ford in hot desperation. 

Christine shook her head. 

“It might be possible to find and punish him but 
what about me? I should think I should be killed 
when the news first came to him he was being fol¬ 
lowed and don’t you see he has us all in his power 
now? If he lets you go, you are on parole, as it 
were. You can’t pursue him afterwards,” Hilling- 
ford groaned, then he burst out, “He’s no right 
to keep you.” 

“No, but I am staying of my own free will. Don’t 
attempt to rescue me. You will only make fearful 
trouble if you do and it seems to be dishonourable 
when he has had you in his power and let you go. 
Be quite happy about me, really. I have had so 
many years of ordinary civilized life I am quite 
prepared to accept this adventure as a change and 
make the best of it.” 

Hillingford was silent, staring down at the 
ground. 

“Do you despise me, too, like the Major?” she 
asked with a little laugh. 

“Good heavens, no, I think you are a heroine. 


42 


THE BEATING HEART 


Of course, I know whatever you may say, you are 
only doing it for us!” 

Christine’s brows contracted. 

Again this wall of hopeless misunderstanding. 
She could not clear it away. She could not explain 
to him for he would never understand. They spoke 
the same language, they were of the same country, 
class and creed, yet she felt further from him, in a 
way, than she did from the stranger who was their 
host. 

Hillingford who was girt about with conventions 
and civilization got on very well with the half of 
Christine that was conventional, civilized woman, 
the other half the simple, natural primitive woman 
he would not have been able to understand at all. 

Christine did not attempt further explanation all 
she said was: 

“Well, remember the Sabine women and don’t 
rescue me. I don’t want it. I think it would be 
dishonourable and extremely dangerous. When I 
want civilization again I’ll find a way of getting back 
to it. Now, promise. Then I shall feel safer and 
happier,” and very reluctantly Hillingford promised. 

The rosy glow was fading, stars sparkled in it 
here and there. In the East a great pale moon came 
up reminding them of the approaching hour of de¬ 
parture. 

In silence they walked back to the tent. The 
door was open and an Arab was lighting the central 
lamp, while two others were spreading out a meal 
on the carpet. The women were arranging their 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 43 

hair before scraps of looking-glass and the men 
sat moody and silent watching the Arabs at work. 

It was a short and quiet meal, less lively than 
their supper last night. 

There seemed nothing more to be said. No one 
seemed to have any ideas, or to wish to speak. A 
sullen sort of apathy had settled on them all as if 
they were a flock of overdriven sheep. Christine 
alone looked radiant and clear-eyed and sat looking 
through the door of the tent towards that other one 
of which she could just see the closed flaps. At 
last she saw movement about it. Arabs went in 
carrying coffee and Arabs came out and at last one 
crossed the space to their tent and entered. 

“The horses are refreshed and ready. All is 
now prepared for your departure and our Master 
would be pleased if you will come to his tent.” 

Not knowing yet whether they were all going to 
be executed at the last moment or not the English 
all rose and followed the Arab out of their tent 
across the now moonlit space to the other one and 
were ushered gravely in. 

Lasrali was standing to receive them. The audi¬ 
ence was to be short so no cushions were prepared 
nor offered, of which the Major was very glad. 
They filed in. Christine as the interpreter and the 
only one who oculd understand was pushed a little 
forward and stood in front of the rest. Her eyes 
alight, her cheeks and lips glowing, her form full of 
elastic strength, she looked as she felt in the first 
flush of womanhood. Her face was smiling as she 


44 


THE BEATING HEART 


looked up at him and Lasrali looked down at her as 
a man dying of thirst looks at a crystal spring. Then 
he began to speak very clearly and restrainedly. 

“I am an Arab and a host is a host, and guests 
are guests. I tell you now you are all free. Last 
night I made conditions I should not have done. 
They do not exist this evening. With my escort 
you will all proceed to Jerusalem and may peace be 
with you.” 

He stopped and Christine, paling a little, repeated 
it in English. 

Then Lasrali approached her a step nearer and 
added: “Sacred is the law of hospitality. I in¬ 
fringed it last night. I touched this lady. To her 
I apologise.” 

Utter silence. Christine stood as if actually 
turned to ice or stone. Her color fled. She gazed 
up at Lasrali as if he were demented. Her com¬ 
panions to whom the words conveyed nothing grew 
cold with fear. What now? What in heaven’s 
name had he said? Was all that first palaver some 
ghastly joke? Had he now suggested they should 
be eaten alive or what? They gazed at Christine, 
longing for her to speak and fully prepared for the 
worst. Her face was a study of astonishment, agony 
and despair. The Major couldn’t stand it. He 
went up behind her and shook her arm. 

“What’s he said now? The scoundrel!” 

Lasrali bent towards her with grave kindness. 

“Perhaps you do not understand. You are free. 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 45 


Go with your friends. I regret that your beauty 
last night overcame me.” 

Christine still stood white and silent and trem¬ 
bling. Was it possible? Here again the very idea, 
the actual words that had ruined her happiness at 
i 61 Here in this man of different race and caste 
and blood, country and creed, the same misunder¬ 
standing. Were men all alike? Was it only Woman 
who saw clearly back to the primaeval fount of 
things and recognized in passion the joyous force of 
life? 

“Christine!” it was Lady .Hollingford’s voice 
sharp and thin. She was delicate and nervous and 
she felt she could bear the strain no longer. “Do 
tell us what he says, whatever it is!” 

In a flash Christine saw how this little accident 
of knowing the language put them all in her power. 
Her friends, their safety, Lasrali, his reputation, 
were all her toys. 

For the moment the temptation came to her to 
mistranslate his words. Just to say he dismissed 
them as had been arranged and was keeping her. 
The primaeval woman fighting for her ends 
prompted this. That would satisfy all these civil¬ 
ized fools and they would go and leave her in peace 
with the heroine’s halo round her head. It would 
be so difficult otherwise perhaps to stay. 

But the impulse was pushed aside instantly by 
her feelings of truth and honour and responsibility 
to those who trusted her. Also she would not rob 


46 


THE BEATING HEART 


Lasrali of the credit for his fine feelings and his 
self-sacrifice. 

Stammering and hesitating because of the amaze¬ 
ment gripping her, she gave out his words in English 
exactly as he had spoken them and the relief of the 
others was mixed with surprise. 

“Well, that’s all right! What’s the matter with 
you?” asked Lady Hillingford, but Melisande only 
laughed. 

“Please leave me now I desire rest,” Lasrali said. 

“Do thank him for us and tell him how grateful 
w^e are,” Hillingford said and Christine mechanically 
turned his words into Arabic. Slipping, slipping 
from her she saw the golden moment, never to be 
captured again. The English are not a graceful 
people. They tried to bow and salute Lasrali who 
stood there reposeful and dignified but they were 
not very good at it and in a sort of huddled bunch 
they got through the tent curtains. The Major 
marched out with flat defiance. 

“Showed the white feather after all, didn’t dare 
to touch us, thought so, damned scoundrel!” was 
his farewell remark. 

Christine was the last to leave. The others had 
preceded her and the curtains had fallen to behind 
them. Her hand was on the dangling fringes. She 
looked back. The tent was empty. At the other 
side of it were the curtains dividing off Lasrali’s 
sleeping tent. Through them he had disappeared. 
Should she? Dare she? Race after that fleeting, 
golden moment which was now eluding her for the 


THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS 47 


second time? Behind her lay all those years of an 
existence she knew so well. Almost every form of 
civilised amusement that a modern age provides 
had been hers. And love in all its delicate restrained 
civilised ways had been offered her again and again 
but there had seemed something tame and flat about 
it all. Before her stood Life in another dress or 
rather in an unashamed barbaric nakedness which 
had some strength and glory about it. Above all 
it was something new. She seemed in those seconds 
to visualise it as a dancing, laughing figure, taunting 
her, daring her to come after it. And she would 
dare. Beyond the further curtains was burning a 
great electric force that was calling to every nerve 
and pulse and fibre of her frame pulling her irre¬ 
sistibly to itself. 

The curtains dropped from her nerveless fingers. 
Swift, silent as a shadow, she passed across the space 
and drew back the curtains that had closed behind 
Lasrali. A dim light burned in the tent. Beyond 
she saw his unrolled bed. He himself was standing 
still gazing at the ground. He turned and saw her 
as she entered, not weak nor white nor trembling 
nor hesitant now, but alive, determined, triumphant, 
glowing, expanding, the future mother of a bold 
and hardy race. Eyes shining, she advanced to¬ 
wards him with outstretched hands. 

“Lasrali! don’t send me away! I want to stay 
here with you!” 

A flash came over his face as of some great en¬ 
lightenment. He put both his hands on her shoul- 


48 


THE BEATING HEART 


ders and gazed keenly into her eyes but hers did not 
waver. They glowed and glowed carrying their 
message straight to his. 

“Is it true?” he asked. 

“Yes, I swear it by the Koran.” 

Over his face so superbly gifted by Nature, swept 
that wonderful, all enveloping softness and sweet¬ 
ness that filled her with ecstasy. 

“Then the dream of my life is realised.” 

“And mine,” said Christine. 


COLOUR 

Circumstances sometimes make us virtuous against 
our will. 

George Morris was pottering about at the back 
of the dusty, dingy little picture shop, while the 
dealer had gone to fetch the picture backing George 
had come in for, when he noticed set away on a shelf 
a little sketch and paused before it fascinated. It was 
a most attractive little thing, all red: everything in 
it was a delightful warm, rich, glowing crimson. 
The background was red—the interior of a room 
full of firelight. A bed hung with red curtains occu¬ 
pied the centre with an undraped woman’s figure 
of the loveliest lines, getting into it: one ivory knee 
pressed the side of the bed: her fair hair, glinting 
with red in the firelight, fell over her shoulders and 
her rounded arm, uplifted to draw aside the curtain. 
Underneath the picture was written the one word, 
“RUBY.” 

George Morris, city man, living in the suburbs 
with Mrs. Morris in the dull, solid round of Eng¬ 
lish existence, felt his heart leap up suddenly in 
response to the call of the picture. Under a plain, 
prosaic exterior this man had a deep natural love for 
romance, a thirst for adventure, a longing for the 
“wine, woman and song” that seemed never to form 
49 


50 


THE BEATING HEART 


a part of his humdrum life. He thought of Mrs. 
Morris and her dull, plain face and the ginger- 
brown gown she seemed to live in. Why did she 
always wear brown, he wondered? Why not red, 
for instance? He thought of their bedroom at 
Meadow View, Mervyn Road: its linoleum floor, 
its iron bedstead, its white walls, its narrow grate 
filled with tissue paper and never guilty of a fire. In 
fact, it was always so cold that Maria Morris wore 
very thick nightgowns and woolly jackets to keep 
warm, and the electric light was so expensive now 
that she would hardly allow it to be used upstairs, 
and always said they could just as well undress 
in the dark. 

George sighed. Why was Maria like that and 
his bedroom like that? Why should he not have a 
rich, warm, red room like this . . . and . . . 
and . . .? 

‘There you are, sir: the best three-ply there is for 
picture backing.” 

George turned round with a start. He had quite 
forgotten his errand. 

The dealer was peering at him through his spec¬ 
tacles, the thin wood in his hand. 

“Er—ah!—thank you very much,” he stammered. 
“Er—this picture here—what price is it?” He in¬ 
dicated the little red sketch. 

“Oh, that’s not for sale,” replied the man. “It’s 
just a bit an artist brought in to show me. He’s 
painting quite a big picture. It’s for the Salon, I 
believe.” 


COLOUR 


51 


“Oh,” murmured George, “not for the Acad¬ 
emy?” He felt disappointed he couldn’t buy the 
sketch, and if the picture was going to Paris he 
would never see it again. 

The dealer shook his head doubtfully. “No. I 
think not. Colour’s a bit too warm for England, 
I should say.” 

The door bell sprang at the moment, and the 
dealer looked round a pile of frames into the front 
shop. 

“Why, here is Mr. Brookes himself!” he ex¬ 
claimed. And George saw a tall slight young man 
with the artist’s slouch-hat and a flowing tie come 
in and nod to the shopman. “There’s a gentleman 
here admiring your picture,” the latter said, and 
George approached him eagerly. 

“I do indeed,” he said. “It’s a wonderful pic¬ 
ture. I’m sorry I won’t ever see the big one.” 

The artist flushed with pleasure. “You can come 
and see it now, if you like,” he said in a pleased 
tone. “My shanty’s only a stone’s throw from here; 
two fbbes of purple madder, please. Smith, and chalk 
them up, will you? I haven’t a cent on me.” 

George’s heart beat. A visit to a real studio 
with an artist to see this glorious red picture! He 
accepted at once. What a comfort that Maria had 
always been out to tea lately and there was no need 
for him to hurry back. 

When the artist had got his paints and George 
had paid for his purchase, they left the shop together 
and walked to the studio. 


52 


THE BEATING HEART 


It was in a side street, and you went down a long 
slope from the pavement to a wooden door which 
the artist opened with his latchkey, and George 
walked through a small passage into a great, untidy, 
comfortable room that, with its hint of gaiety and 
dissolute romance, delighted him. There were deep 
chairs everywhere, a huge dais in one corner all 
draped in gorgeous red, a stove in the centre glowing 
hot, a deep cushioned semi-circular lounge half 
round it. One corner of the room was walled off 
with voluminous blue curtains to form the artist’s 
bedroom. The whole end of the room farthest from 
this was window, but it only looked into a quiet 
green garden with high walls round affording com¬ 
plete seclusion. There was a delightful litter of 
pictures all about, a mass of flowers by the sunny 
window, an aviary of singing birds, soft Turkey 
rugs on the floor, and the perfume of scented cigar¬ 
ettes in the air. George liked it. He liked it much 
better than the stiff drawing room with the starched 
white curtains and high hard chairs of Meadow 
View. 

The artist drew forward two big chairs and then, 
going to the dais pulled on a cord. The curtains 
flew apart and there was the picture I Then he 
threw himself into one of the chairs while George 
took the other, and the two men gazed at the canvas 
in silence. 

“Wonderful woman she is,” remarked the artist 
after a minute between the puffs of his cigarette. 
“Bit of a mystery. Calls herself Mrs. Brown, but 


COLOUR 


53 


don’t believe that’s her real name. Can’t make out 
what she’s doing it for: whether it’s the money or 
for the fun of it; little of both, perhaps. She’s not 
a regular model evidently, but she’s one of the best 
I ever had. Good figure, isn’t it?” 

“Oh, perfect, perfect!” replied George raptur¬ 
ously. He couldn’t take his eyes off the picture. He 
sat before it spellbound, clasping his British um¬ 
brella in both hands as it stood between his British 
knees gazing at the vivid, barbaric riot of beautiful 
colour and suggestion that appealed so to his ro¬ 
mantic un-British heart. “What’s her face like?” 

“Oh, nothing very much. Not a bad little face 
when she smiles and gets some colour; but you see 
I didn’t want the face for that picture.” 

“No, quite so, quite so,” assented George. 

“Larky woman, I should think,” went on the 
artist. “Married to a sort of dull brute of a hus¬ 
band—doesn’t care about her; leaves her alone all 
day.” 

“Pig!” grunted George indignantly. “Can you 
imagine a man having a woman like that and neglect¬ 
ing her?” 

The artist laughed. 

“Well, marriage is a killing atmosphere. I don’t 
know what she may be at home, she’s amusing 
enough when she comes in here.” 

“What do you know about her? Where did you 
meet her?” 

“The funny part is I don’t know anything. She 
just walked in here one afternoon: ‘Said she was 


54 


THE BEATING HEART 


bored to death and had no romance or fun in her 
life, and no money of her own to spend. Said she’d 
sit as a model if I’d have her. I wasn’t much struck 
at first: she was rather badly dressed, you know; 
but we talked a little bit and I got rather interested. 
I’d had the idea for this picture for a long time, 
I hadn’t a model, and she was cheap and very will¬ 
ing to learn and be civil, which all of them are not, 
and so there it was. She’s been coming to me for 
quite a time now, and it’s good, the picture, isn’t 
it? I’m hoping it’ll make a big hit.” 

George nodded. He was grasping his umbrella 
feverishly, his hands rolling and unrolling the silk 
flaps nervously. He would do it, he would. He’d 
have this one bit of romance in his life to cherish 
and look back upon. 

He turned to the insouciant artist who, with his 
head tilted back and the cigarette in his teeth and his 
leg hanging over one arm of the chair, was con¬ 
templating his work with satisfaction through half- 
closed eyes. 

“I think I heard you say in that shop you were a 
little pressed for ready money,” he said in his rather 
stiff way. 

The artist laughed. “Dead broke, my dear sir, 
that’s what I am! Why? Are you thinking of 
making me an offer for the picture?” 

George leant nearer him. 

“The picture’s good,” he said hoarsely, for his 
throat felt dry, “but it’s the woman I want. Do 
you want to make twenty pounds ? Well, here’s your 


COLOUR 


55 


chance. Get her for me. Get her here. Lend me 
the studio for a few hours. Fix up those red cur¬ 
tains, have it just like the picture, red lights, red 
fire, red roses, red everything. Get her posing just 
like that, mind, just like that; then you clear out 
and leave us alone.” 

The artist was sitting bolt upright now staring 
at Mr. George Morris as if he could not believe his 
eyes or his ears, as indeed he could not. Was this 
really the very respectable old party he had met 
in the shop? His eyes were glowing, his face 
flushed. He looked almost young and handsome. 
What an astounding proposition from such an ortho¬ 
dox-looking old Briton! Still, twenty pounds . . . 

“But I don’t suppose for one minute she’d con¬ 
sent,” he said after an astonished pause of reflection. 

George made an angry movement of impatience. 

“Unless you muddle things,” he said, “she won’t 
know anything about it. You won’t ask her any¬ 
thing.” 

“But I don’t see ...” began the other. 

“Look here. You get the lady to come to an 
ordinary sitting; just as usual. You fix up every¬ 
thing, just as it is there, as you always do, I sup¬ 
pose. I’m waiting behind those curtains there. 
Then you get her to pose just like that: you step 
back to get something, brush or what-not. You slip 
behind the curtains and then clear out of the studio 
and I am left in your place. What’s to prevent you 
doing that?” 

“Nothing. Only it seems rather a bad trick for 


56 


THE BEATING HEART 


me to play her and she may disappoint you, she 
may ...” 

“Never mind,” returned George calmly now. “If 
I muddle my own affairs when you leave us that’s 
my business; nothing to do with you. You get your 
twenty all the same.” 

“When?” asked the artist dubiously. 

“When I look through those curtains,” returned 
George intimating the artist’s walled-off bedroom 
behind them, “ and see this picture in life. When 
you pass me to go out I’ll slip the notes into your 
hand.” 

Mr. James Brookes looked down on the floor in 
silent thought. He didn’t like the idea at all. Still, 
he was very hard up and perhaps his model would 
not mind. She seemed very good natured. He 
could pass it off as a practical joke. 

“I don’t half like it,” he said after a minute. 
“Still, I’ll do it.” 

“When?” 

“Day after to-morrow she’s coming—four to six. 
You’d better be here by three-thirty, so there’s no 
chance of her seeing you come in.” 

George got up with a strange fire of joy in his 
heart. Here was romance, intrigue, adventure, com¬ 
ing into his life at last! 

He cast his eyes round the studio with its inviting 
air of ease, its bright colours, its luxury, which 
seemed to belie, or was it the cause of its owner’s 
poverty? 

“I envy you your life,” he said, buttoning up 


COLOUR 


57 


his coat and gazing at the innumerable portraits of 
brunettes and blondes on the studio walls. “There 
must be so much beauty, poetry, colour in it, novelty, 
change.” And he sighed, thinking of his eighteen 
years at Meadow View with Maria. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” returned the artist. “One 
gets sick of it, you know; so many women and all 
jealous and squabbling with one another. One longs 
sometimes for a home and a little peace and quiet¬ 
ness.” 

“What a pity we can’t change places,” mused 
George as he walked home thinking over the artist’s 
words. Then he fell to wondering what the model’s 
face would be like. “A nice little face when she 
smiles and gets some colour,” the artist had said, 
and it rather took his fancy. Ruby! It was a sweet 
name! And she, like himself, was sighing for ro¬ 
mance in her life, was evidently just as lonely and 
unappreciated as he was. By the time he got back 
to Mervyn Road, his face had assumed its usual 
chastened expression. 

Maria seemed rather more dull and sour than 
usual. 

“Why didn’t you come back to tea?” she enquired. 

George flushed. 

“You have been out so often to tea lately,” he 
said. 

“Well, I wasn’t to-day,” she snapped. “You 
might let me know when you’re not coming home 
till dinner.” 

“I’ll be at the office late, I know, the day after 


58 


THE BEATING HEART 


tomorrow,” replied George, trying to speak natur¬ 
ally, but getting redder and redder. 

“All right,” returned Maria, “I’m glad to know 
it. I’ll go and have tea with Aunt Emma.” 

“Do, my dear, and I’ll get back in time for 
dinner.” 

“I should hope so,” rejoined Maria. 

George was amiability itself that evening. The 
glow of the picture had got into his heart and 
warmed it, and that night he could not sleep for 
thinking of it. What might not this adventure lead 
up to? He had heard of men who had cosy little 
flats, the existence of which was unknown to their 
lawful, wives. He had always thought this very 
wrong, but now he began to feel sympathy with those 
men. Perhaps, like himself they had dull, unsympa¬ 
thetic wives; perhaps they, too, were yearning after 
colour in their lives. A little flat and all furnished 
in red, which could be kept very warm so that its 
occupant could wear those nice pink and blue things 
he saw in the windows of the Burlington Arcade, 
and dispense with woolly jackets. Silk stockings, 
too! He had often thought it would be nice to 
have someone to take those neat boxes of silk stock¬ 
ings home to that he saw on the counter of men’s 
shops when he went to buy his ties. He had never 
thought of Maria. Silk stockings didn’t go with 
Meadow View—they went with little flats. Of 
course, it might be rather expensive, but then, why 
should he not spend something on his own amuse¬ 
ments? He was very liberal with Maria. She was 


COLOUR 


59 


always buying new hats. Now last year, she had 
had—^^how many? There was the hat with the green 
feathers, and—er—er the hat with the green 
feathers, and—and—the hat with the green feath¬ 
ers. Well, there, he couldn’t think of any other 
hat, so he supposed she had had only one last year, 
and finally, trying to find another hat for Maria, 
he fell asleep. 

***** 

The great day came and with a beating heart, 
Mr. George Morris left his office early and hurried 
to the studio, arriving there some minutes before 
the appointed time. The artist let him in himself, 
and George thought the studio looked more attrac¬ 
tive than ever. The sun was streaming through the 
lowered red blinds, the stove was burning brightly, 
there were flowers on the many little tables and a 
heavy fragrance from burning pastilles in the air. 
He was quite sorry to have to go into the dark re¬ 
cesses of the bedroom in the corner, but his host 
insisted on it and gave him a chair well back against 
the wall away from the curtain. He gave him a 
paper, but as it was too dark to read there with 
any comfort and he was strictly enjoined not to 
make the faintest noise, so that he could not turn 
its pages, it was obvious the paper was not much 
use to him. And how could anyone read in that state 
of high-strung expectation in which Mr. George 
Morris now found himself? 

After sitting there alone in the obscurity for what 
seemed an interminable time, he heard a ring at the 


6o 


THE BEATING HEART 


main door and the artist going out to answer it. 
They seemed to linger a long time at the door and 
he thought he heard some ripples of laughter that 
set all his pulses beating. Then he heard the studio 
door open and evidently two persons entering. But 
he was disappointed that he could not hear their 
conversation, hardly their voices through the muf¬ 
fling folds of the heavy curtains. He was afraid 
to leave his seat and approach nearer the curtains 
for fear lest some noise of his movement might 
betray him. The model’s ears might be sharper 
than his own. There was quite a long pause of 
silence, and he wondered what they were doing. 
Perhaps the model was undressing. Then he heard 
the moving of furniture and supposed the scene was 
being arranged. The heavy bed with its elaborate 
red drapery that figured in the picture had to be 
pushed to its right position on the dais. He sat 
impatiently on his chair, the notes all ready in his 
hand to be given to the artist in that blissful moment 
when he should pass by him on his way out, leaving 
him alone with the adorable model. 

At last his host’s light step approached the other 
side of the curtains, a hand was laid on them, and 
he heard his voice say: “I’ll just fetch that tube,” 
and then the curtains were pulled apart. 

Morris sprang to his feet and stood spell-bound. 
There was the lovely picture in the life, the warm 
interior, the gorgeous bed, the crimson lights and 
in the centre, the feminine figure of lovely whiteness 


COLOUR 


6i 


with the flowing hair in the pose of just getting 
into bed. 

The artist passed swiftly by him, pulled the notes 
out of George’s nerveless hand as he stood there 
staring, then passed on noiselessly to the door which 
he closed behind him with the faintest click. Faint 
though It was, it came to George’s ears and roused 
him. He was alone—the room, the scene, the model 
was his! With outstretched arm he rushed forward 
to clasp this beauty, this dream, this delight to him. 
He reached the dais. His arms were almost round 
her lovely shoulders when the model turned. 

A shriek rang through the studio : ^^GeorgeP* 

^^Mariar 


A NOVEL ELOPEMENT 


The train puffed its way along its line through 
one of the prettiest parts of Kent and carried among 
its many passengers a bridal couple that had that 
morning been married and were now en route for 
their honeymoon. 

Three weeks ago they had never seen each other, 
these two, who now at the respective ages of eighteen 
and twenty-five, had taken their solemn oath to re¬ 
main together till Death. They had met at a dance. 
He had been in the mood to marry somebody; she 
was already rather tired of refusing offers and 
accepted his for a change. Their engagement had 
been a joyous whirl, and both were very happy now 
and were quite convinced that their choice was ex¬ 
cellent. Eva thought Eric was so clever and had 
such a wonderful mind and character because he 
always agreed with her in conversation. Eric was 
so occupied with gazing into her blue eyes when he 
answered her searching questions, that he had not 
the remotest idea what it was he agreed to. If she 
said she loved dogs he said he thought there was 
nothing so jolly and faithful; if she said women 
should have votes, he said it would be a shame if 
they hadn’t. If she said she adored music, he said 
his happiest hours were passed listening to her play¬ 
ing; if she said vivisection was a blot on our civiliza- 
62 


A NOVEL ELOPEMENT 


63 


tion, h,e said it was a beastly, unnatural practice and 
ought to be stopped. If she said the traffic in old 
horses should be abolished he told her his idea had 
always been to found a home where old horses could 
end their days in peace. Once, when he trod on 
the tail of her mother’s cat, he had seemed, to her 
surprise, a little callous about it. She had reproached 
him. The cat had been picked up immediately by 
him, fondled on his knee and given a saucer of milk 
by way of consolation. 

Eva simply glowed with joy and love after such 
conversations and incidents, and when her mother 
pointed out that she knew very little of the man 
and that the engagement was very short, she 
answered: 

“It doesn’t matter, we are so alike and take the 
same view of everything. We are sure to be happy.” 

She honestly thought she saw him in his words. 
All she saw was what he let her see—the reflection 
of her own warm-hearted, clear-headed self. She 
had really thought out the subjects on which she 
formed her well-founded opinions. When she of¬ 
fered these to him, as he never thought out anything 
and had no opinions, he accepted hers just as lightly 
and easily as he would have accepted the contrary 
ones, if offered! 

It is always very difficult for the deep, strong 
nature of a woman to realise the facile worthlessness 
of a man’s. She was happy as she sat in the corner 
of the carriage, her hand tucked into his. She was 
sure—or nearly sure—that she had found a good. 


64 


THE BEATING HEART 


great man. He was quite sure he had found a girl 
with a pretty face and nice figure—these were clear 
to the eye, no bother of thinking them out—so both 
young people were blissfully content and satisfied. 

Suddenly the easy motion of the train stopped. 
A jar and a jerk, then it drew up motionless where 
the line ran through a pretty wood. Eric sprang up 
and put his head out of the window. It was autumn, 
the evening chill, and dusk. He could not see ahead 
—only that they were not stopping at any station. 
Presently the guard came along by the side of the 
train: 

“There’s an obstruction on the line, sir, on ahead! 
Part of a tunnel fallen in. It will take some clearing 
away, too. We can’t get on to-night.” 

Most of the other passengers were looking out 
and listening to his discouraging accents. Their eyes 
wandered over the wood in which the train was 
pulled up. It stood golden in autumn leaf, silent and 
chill. It seemed unresponsive, and to offer no solu¬ 
tion of their difficulties. Then plans began to be 
made and eagerly discussed. Some of the passengers 
were in favor of returning to the last station and 
stopping there the night, being somewhat reluctantly 
assured by the guard they could “get on in the morn¬ 
ing.” 

Eric withdrew his head and sat down by Eva. 

“What would you like to do, darling?” 

Eva was gazing into the mystery of the shadowy 
wood. 


A NOVEL ELOPEMENT 65 

“Could we camp there?” she said. “Under that 
golden canopy, it’s very lovely I” 

Eric’s face lengthened. 

“Hardly, dear, I think. It’s so damp and-” 

“There is a lovely full moon rising behind the 
trees,” she answered. 

Eric was silent. The wood did not appeal to him, 
nor the rising moon. Neither did the “Bull and 
Cow” which was the station inn and the only one 
they had seen from the last station as they passed. 

In the pause that ensued the guard entered the 
carriage and approached the young couple confiden¬ 
tially. 

“We’ve decided to make a run back, sir, from 
here; but if I may make a suggestion, there’s a nice 
farmhouse not a stone’s throw from here where 
you’d be most comfortable. I know the party as 
keeps it would put you up for the night and give 
you a good supper.” 

Eva looked up brightly. 

“A farmhouse? Is it a pretty one?” 

“Well, I couldn’t say as it’s so very pretty,” re¬ 
turned the guard doubtfully, “but there’s good ale 
to be had and fowls and pork and nice rooms, too, 
what they let in the summer.” 

Eric became decisive. 

“I think, darling, that’s really the best we can do, 
and if it’s, quite near we can get our light luggage 
carried over.” 

A man was found by the guard. They gathered 
their wraps and light cases together. In a few 



66 


THE BEATING HEART 


moments they were standing on the damp soil by the 
side of the train, listening to the directions he was 
giving for the route. 

It did not sound so very near: 

“You keeps away from the wood and you goes 
up th^e hill to the top and then down on the other 
side till you comes to the bridge, and don’t cross 
the bridge, but keep along by the stream till you 
get to a stile, and you cross the stile and go through 
two fields and then there’s a bit of a wood and you 
go through the wood and then you comes out on a 
bit of a slope and the farm’s just facing you.” 

“But that’s a long way,” expostulated Eric. Eva 
was surprised at his cross tone. She had never heard 
it before. 

“It will be a lovely walk on this moonlight night,” 
she volunteered. 

“It’s noti more’n fifteen minutes or ’arf-an-hour’s 
walk,” said the guard in an aggrieved tone, “and 
you can’t miss it, and the ale’s good.” 

Eric tipped him. Thq man shouldered the cases 
and they started. They followed their instructions 
to keep away from the wood and took a little nar¬ 
row path that wound up to the top of the hill. The 
moon was just peeping over its brow and made long 
shadows fall from the trees that stood here and 
there. The air was damp and cool and full of the 
scent of late roses and wet leaves. 

To the girl it was all pure enjoyment, only clouded 
a little by the fact that Eric seemed so put out. They 
walked side by side in silence. The man trudged 


A NOVEL ELOPEMENT 


67 


along behind them, silent also. Up and up till the 
ridge was reached, then down and down on the other 
side. Eva walked with springing steps admiring 
the calm beauty of it all, drawing pleasure from 
each little detail of star in the sky or gleam of 
moonlight on the brook. She hazarded a few en¬ 
thusiastic remarks, but Eric did not seem to hear 
them, and there was silence until the second field 
beyond the stile was reached. Then through the 
quiet air came suddenly to them a strange sound— 
a low, hollow sound of misery. Eva stopped: 

“What is that sound, Eric?” 

“Dog barking, I should think,” he answered 
shortly. 

“I never heard a dog bark like that before; it has 
an awful, extraordinary sound.” 

“Yes, because the beast has barked himself hoarse, 
I should think, that’s all.” 

Eva stood listening. 

“Yes, I suppose it is hoarse as you say, but what 
a terrible sound.” 

It was a terrible lamenting cry of a soul in misery 
that came to them wailing over the wood and the 
stream. 

“Please come along,” Eric said as she stood there 
with dilating eyes. “We don’t want to spend the 
night here.” 

Eva walked on. The sound of the barking, if 
barking it could be called, becoming clearer and 
nearer as they advanced. They were in the wood 
now, and the moonlight falling through the trees 


68 


THE BEATING HEART 


made beautiful patterns and traceries on the moss- 
grown path, but Eva! now had no eyes for it. She 
was listening to that long-drawn wail of pain that 
came fitfully through the silver air. 

“But aren’t you sorry for it?” she asked. 

“I don’t know. It’s barked itself into that con¬ 
dition, I expect. I suppose it’s one of the farm 
dogs. I hope the) brute won’t go on like that all 
night.” 

Eva was silent. It was not quite what she ex¬ 
pected Eric to say, but she made no comment. 

They were through the wood, on the slope, and 
there was the farmhouse at last facing them on the 
slope opposite. 

It looked comfortable enough and cheery; well- 
built and solid with a warm blaze of light in its 
lower windows. A large farmyard was close at its 
side; an orchard on the other side. From behind 
the house the hollow, melancholy barking continued, 
belying the aspect of peace and rest. 

At the door of the farmhpuse they received a 
warm welcome. It was thrown open by the stout, 
good-tempered looking woman herself, while her 
husband and son, burly figures in their rough farm 
clothes, lounged up to the threshold, hands in pock¬ 
ets, to stare at the strangers. Behind them at the 
end of the passage or hall a door stood open to 
warmth and lights and a table laid for supper. 

Farmer Bates and his wife let rooms in the sum¬ 
mer, so they knew the ways of the rich and those 
who were not farmers. There was no difficulty. 


A NOVEL ELOPEMENT 


69 


They could have a nice room, they could have hot 
water, they could have baths and they could have 
early tea in the morning; they could have roast 
chicken and soup and apple tart for supper. 

Eric cheered up and Eva saw the expression she 
was familiar with come back to his face. The “en¬ 
gagement expression” as she now christened it in 
her mind. It was the only one she had seen for 
those three weeks—the only one she knew—but she 
saw now his face had others. 

She was asked to go in and sit by the fire, and did 
so while the farmer’s young, handsome son took 
the place opposite. Eric was arranging terms with 
the woman and seeing their luggage carried upstairs. 

The young farmer started a conversation as he 
was accustomed to do with the summer visitors. 
Eva was preoccupied; she wanted to ask about the 
dog, but she hesitated as to how best to approach 
the subject, and before she had decided, the others 
came back into the room. 

The supper was quite a merry meal for all except 
herself. It was all quiet outside now, but in spite of 
the talk going on round her, her ears were only 
listening for that call from without. Eric grew 
quite jovial; he approved the farmer’s ale and drank 
heartily. The farming family were pleased at their 
guests’ appreciation, and the prospect of the good 
pay coming in. Bridegrooms were always generous. 
Suddenly,-across the laughter and the talk, it came 
again; that awful wail of hopeless misery. The 
hosts did not appear to hear it, but Eva’s face 


70 


THE BEATING HEART 


blanched, and a look of annoyance flashed across 
Eric’s handsome countenance. 

Eva turned to the young man next her: 

“Why has that dog got such a peculiar bark?” she 
asked. 

“Because he’s going mad, I think,” he answered. 
“We’re going to shoot him in the morning.” 

The young farmer was quite surprised by the look 
of distress that come to the girl’s face. 

“Oh, but why?” she exclaimed. “I think from 
his bark he wants water. Let me take him some.” 

The man laugh,ed; 

“You take him water? Why you couldn’t get 
near him. He’s so savage he’d eat you alive.” 

“What has made him so savage?” 

“Well, we’ve kept him on the chain for seven 
years, and it’s sent him crazy, I think,” he answered 
indifferently. “We haven’t been able to get near 
him for years; we just throw him his food and push 
the water to him with a pole.” 

“Do you mean you’ve kept him chained up and 
never let him free once, never given him any ex¬ 
ercise for seven years?” 

“Oh, he gets exercise enough dancing about at 
the end of that chain and howling. We let him howl 
in the winter for we don’t notice him, and it’s too 
much troublq to go out and bash him, but in the 
summer when the visitors are here we thrash him 
when he barks, for they don’t like it, and if it annoys 
you I’ll soon settle him now.” 

And before she realised what he was going to 


A NOVEL ELOPEMENT 


71 


do, he rose from his place, strode up to where some 
huge horsewhips were ranged against the wall, and 
then with one in his hand, went to the door. The 
burly farmer turned in his chair. 

“That’s right, Steve, you go and give him a good 
hiding. Teach him to behave when we have ladies 
here.” 

The son would have gone out, but Eva had sprung 
up and she “put herself between him and the door. 

“Pray don’t,” she said. “It does distress me to 
hear him, but I wouldn’t have him beaten for any¬ 
thing.” 

The young farmer looked down into her blanched 
face and dilated eyes. Their beauty conquered him. 

“As you like,” he said rather sullenly, and hung 
the whip up again on the wall. 

The farmer himself laughed. 

“Now then, missis,” he called banteringly. 
“You’ve no call to interfere. If he wants to beat 
our dog, why shouldn’t we?” 

“Don’t be foolish, Eva. Come and sit down,” 
Eric said. His tone was full of annoyance. 

She came back to the table and sat down facing 
the farmer. She was white and trembling. 

“It’s not your dog,” she said steadily. 

The farmer’s red face turned purple. 

“Not our dog, eh! Not our dog! And ’00s dog 
is it, then, I should like to know?” 

“It’s God’s dog,” the girl replied unflinchingly. 

She had a beautiful voice, very soft and sweet in 
tone, but full of power. It vibrated through the 


72 


THE BEATING HEART 


room now, charged with the intensity of her feel¬ 
ings and held her listeners: 

“All animals are His. He created them. They 
are not ours. They are only lent to us in trust, 
and it is my business to interfere, as it is every¬ 
body’s business to interfere when they are ill- 
treated and mis-used.” 

No one spoke for a moment. The farmer sat 
back, open-mouthed. 

“ ’Pon my word,” he stuttered after a minute. 
“ ’Pon my word,” and could get no further. 

They all turned instinctively to Eric to see what 
view he would take, and Eva, too, looked at him 
appealingly. Surely he would take h,er side 
against the others I 

“Eric?” she said questioningly. He coloured 
hotly. He was annoyed at her making a scene like 
this about nothing. 

“Don’t be stupid, Eva,” he said shortly. “Go 
on with your supper. Qf course Bates has a right 
to do as he thinks best. Personally, I think it 
would be a good thing if he did give the brute 
a thrashing and stopped his howling.” 

“Eric!” she exclaimed again, but this time her 
tone was one of sheer amazement and bewilder¬ 
ment, and sitting in her place she stared across 
at him as if he were some new strange monster 
suddenly presented to her eyes. And indeed, this 
was the fact. She saw, for the first time, the real 
Eric. This was not the man she had married 
this morning, surely? This was not the man 


A NOVEL ELOPEMENT 


73 


whose eyes had been wont to fill with sympathetic 
tears whenever she had wept. A feeling of ex¬ 
treme loneliness came over her. He was one in 
spirit with these coarse-faced, brutal farmers, 
who had tortured their four-footed servant for 
seven years and thrashed him when he had cried 
to them for help. 

She was alone amongst them all. 

She had no husband. That man opposite her, 
who had just let fall those words, was not the one 
she had loved and adored and married. By his 
speech he seemed to have let loose an icy river which 
was flowing now wide and deep as the Polar sea 
between them. 

“Don’t sit staring at me,” Eric said impatiently. 
“Go on with your supper, for Heaven’s sake.” 

Eva’s lips set. She pushed her plate from her 
and rose. 

“Thank you, I have finished,” she merely said, 
but there was such a cutting drsdain in her voice, 
such a thin, frosty edge to her tone, that it seemed 
to those at the table a shower of ice had fallen sud¬ 
denly upon them. She stood for a moment looking 
down on the circle, at the flushed, bloated faces, at 
the burly lounging forms of these men who could 
sit there stuffing themselves to their protruding 
eyes; well-warmed, well-fed, well-clothed, and know¬ 
ing that their faithful friend and devoted defender 
was stretched on the cold stones a few feet away, 
dying in the agonies of thirst and despair. 

She turned and left the room before anyone 


74 


THE BEATING HEART 


moved or spoke, and went upstairs to the bedroom. 

She opened the door. A fire had been lighted in 
the grate, and its cheerful red light was playing 
all over the room. The blinds were pulled down, 
and thick red curtains drawn across the windows. 
On the neat dressing-table stood a vase full of dried 
lavender. The bed in the corner with snowy sheets 
and counterpane invited to repose. Another little 
bed, draped in pink dimity, stood near the window. 

It was a room in which any weary traveller would 
have liked to rest. 

Eva noticed nothing. She shut the door behind 
her, then walked over to the window, pulled aside 
the curtains and let the spring blind fly up with a 
snap. Then she looked out, and there was the dog! 
Facing her across a large stone paved yard, fully 
illuminated by the brilliant moonlight so that she 
could see every detail. At the extreme end of his 
chain, his long-nailed paws on the stone flags, the 
wild-eyed, dishevelled looking creature stood, gaz¬ 
ing towards the house where his tormentors lived. 
The girl’s quick eyes took in his gaunt and bony 
frame, the rough hair that stood upright down his 
spine, the open jaw with white foam hanging from 
it, the neck from which all the hair was gone, rubbed 
away in his ceaseless efforts to free himself from 
his chain. Near him were a few bones and un¬ 
touched scraps. Just out of his reach, however he 
might strain, was an overturned earthenware saucer. 
It looked dry, as if it had not contained water for 
many days. 


A NOVEL ELOPEMENT 


75 


So little like a dog the creature looked, she could 
not determine to what breed it belonged, but it 
seemed to have been something between a mastiff 
and a wolfhound. Now it was just a huge, wasted 
wreck, glaring-eyed, demented, that man had made. 

And she looked out at it and pitied it and loved 
it with that boundless love and sympathy for all 
suffering things, that is the best part of the female 
nature. 

So he had stood in that stone-paved yard, week 
in week out for seven years—day after day, night 
after night, of burning sun and intolerable heat, 
or icy cold and cutting winds. No shelter, not even 
a kennel, not even a trace of straw. All round him 
was a ring of shining white on the grey flags which 
his scratching feet had made in his hopeless efforts 
to be free; and the physical sufferings were the least 
of what he had borne. The worst had been the 
awful monotony of those long, dreary days without 
hope, without aim or occupation: that emptiness and 
that sameness that preys on an animal’s brain just 
as much as on a man’s. 

Chained up in his youthful days, with all the wild 
longings for the twenty-mile run, the smell of the 
wildwoods, the finding of mates, fermenting in his 
blood, with his great canine heart full of that won¬ 
derful enthusiastic worship of man that Nature has 
planted there, longing for love and companionship, 
for the touch of a kind hand on his head, he had 
watched the homestead with wistful, hungering eyes. 
And because, when people approached him, he had 


76 


THE BEATING HEART 


tugged so frantically at his chain and pawed the air 
to show his joy and longing to follow them, he had 
been thought savage, and when he had cried out in 
his loneliness, he had been beaten into quietude; but 
his agony and his sorrow, and his wonder at it all 
was so great that even those cruel thrashings had 
not silenced him. 

And now, after seven years of this, he was to 
be shot to-morrow I The girl, looking out at him, un¬ 
derstood all he had gone through, and a fierce resent¬ 
ment against his tormentors rose and swelled within 
her like a great wave. Somehow, she would save 
him, she determined, and give him a little happiness 
before he died; give him that love and sympathy 
his heart had been craving for all those years. She 
had forgotten herself, forgotten it was her wedding 
evening—a time so passionately anticipated during 
her engagement. As for Eric, he seemed to have 
disappeared from her. Somewhere between the 
Church and the farmhouse the Eric she loved had 
vanished. How could she reach that poor, con¬ 
demned prisoner? If she went down now to the 
farmhouse door she would be heard unfastening it, 
even if she could move those solid bars. If she 
were seen in the yard she would certainly be followed 
and prevented from getting near the dog. No one 
else could be persuaded to release him. Everyone 
was afraid of those gleaming teeth and bloodshot 
eyes. She would only probably succeed in getting 
him shot that night instead of to-morrow. And how 
would they shoot him ? Not with one merciful bullet 


A NOVEL ELOPEMENT 


77 


sent direct to the: brain; but probably aiming from 
a distance, they might shoot and wound him a dozen 
times and then perhaps leave him dying and not 
dead. 

They would certainly kill him in the same clumsy, 
misunderstanding way they had treated him while 
alive. Merely to release him in his present condi¬ 
tion, wild-looking and supposed to be mad, would be 
no kindness. If he dashed away he would soon be 
followed, perhaps stoned by the screaming rabble 
of the village. No, she must not only release him, 
she must take him away and with her. He was her 
dog now. No one wanted him. He was going to 
be shot. Well, she would not have that. She would 
take him. Then suddenly she remembered Eric. 
He would certainly object! and she was married. 
She had to consult him. 

She turned from the window in a sudden panic— 
she was a prisoner, too. And her gaolor was of 
the stamp of the men downstairs. How awful this 
was! She had never meant to marry such a man. 
Had he shown himself before the ceremony as he 
had at the supper here, she would never have mar¬ 
ried him. Her hands turned cold, and her knees 
shook. She sank down in a chair by the fire. She 
had never realized the prison side of marriage. 

Union with the twin soul she had thought she 
had found in Eric had not suggested it. But now 
she saw how the case was. Had she been travelling 
alone she could have gone to the farmer and paid 
him his own price for the dog and taken him away 


78 


THE BEATING HEART 


with her, openly. It would have been quite simple. 
But now she knew instinctively Eric would not let 
her do this and as he was against her as well as 
all those downstairs, the dog would probably be shot 
before her eyes and she would be powerless to pre¬ 
vent it because she had given up her single freedom 
of action, given up the right over her own conduct. 
And to that man! It was horrible. Her nails sank 
into her clenched hands. In that moment she longed 
to be free of that room, free of her marriage as the 
dog outside longed to be free of his chain. The sex 
passion is infinitely curious in its nature. Though in 
some ways so strong, so resistless, yet in others it is 
so frail a plant that the lightest wind may sweep it 
away. Eva had given to Eric not only love and 
admiration, but also the natural joyous passion of 
awakened girlhood. Now all these were equally 
dead. She sat there, numb and cold with only one 
desire—to save the dog and escape. 

As she sat trying to think out some plan of action, 
the door opened and Eric came in. The supper had 
done him good; his bad temper was forgotten. He 
came in smiling, and she saw again the old Eric 
with the “engagement expression.” Suddenly it 
occurred to her she could win her way by blandish¬ 
ment however her feelings might have changed. For 
the dog’s sake she must dissemble and act. 

She went up to him with arms outstretched. 

“Oh, Eric darling, I am so glad you have come. 
Do do me a favor, and I’ll simply adore you. Do 


A NOVEL ELOPEMENT 


79 


let us buy that poor dog and take him away with us 
and make up to him for all he has suffered.” 

The smile died away from the man’s face. He 
unclasped her arms from his neck. 

“But, my dear child, he’s mad. You can’t take a 
mad dog about with you. His own people are 
afraid to go near him.” 

“I should think they would be after the way they 
have treated him,” she answered with burning in¬ 
dignation. “But Vm not afraid of him. He is not 
mad. He is only crazy with loneliness and thirst. 
Let me go down and release him, and I’ll be respon¬ 
sible for him.” 

Eric stared at her in amazement and with a grow¬ 
ing anger fed by jealousy and wounded vanity. 

A man’s nerves and state of general self-control 
are not at their best on such an occasion as this, and 
in his unbalanced condition it seemed intolerable to 
him that his bride should not be wholly occupied with 
himself but should be worrying over a miserable 
brute of a dog. It did not occur to him that she was 
only now displaying those qualities that had so much 
attracted him from the first—that soft, warm heart, 
that all-embracing love and sympathy that coupled 
with her physical beauty had made him decide to 
marry her out of all the women he might have 
chosen. It did not occur to h,im either what a price¬ 
less possession of adoring love he might have gained 
for all the rest of his life by yielding to her then and 
conquering himself; nor how, for ever he would kill 
his own future by opposition. He was simply in- 


8 o 


THE BEATING HEART 


tensely angry, jealous and annoyed and blinded by 
hurt vanity and selfish passion. 

“It’s our duty to do something,” she urged. 
“Come and look at him,” and she drew him, re¬ 
luctant, to the window. 

The dog stood in the same position at the end 
of the hateful chain! his eyes glaring, his mouth 
open, his body shivering. The man and woman 
looked out at him together. The woman’s eyes saw 
a fellow creature’s' suffering soul, the man saw—a 
mad dog. 

“It’s really nothing whatever to do with us,” he 
expostulated, “it’s not our business. The people who 
own him must know how to manage him. Why do 
you bother yourself about it!” 

Eva turned and gazed at him with sheer surprise. 

“But Eric, we couldn’t possibly enjoy ourselves 
and sleep comfortably up here knowing he is there 
in such misery!” 

“Of course, we could, if you were not so silly 
about it,” he answered. 

Eva was silent. Power to reply seemed taken 
away from her in face of this colossal adamantine 
hardness. She began to realise that this man she 
had married was not at all the exceptional individual 
she had imagined, but just the ordinary usual human 
being, not actively cruel, but absolutely indifferent 
and callous, not caring about anything except the sat¬ 
isfaction of his senses and the comfort of his own 
body. 


A NOVEL ELOPEMENT 


“Well, if you could, I couldn’t,” she said after 
a moment. “Let me go down and unchain him and 
tell the people I’ll buy him. If you don’t want him 
with us. I’ll send him to my sister to keep for me.” 

“To attempt to unchain a dog in that condition is 
going to your death,” he said shortly, keeping con¬ 
trol over himself as well as he could. 

“I am sure it’s not so, but even if it were and I 
feel it’s my duty, I ought to do it. Why, Eric, how 
many times in the War did you not go forward to 
almost certain death just because it was your duty?” 

Eric coloured furiously. 

“That may be, but I’m not going to risk my life 
now to free a mad dog.” 

“I’m not asking you to. I want to free him.” 

“And my answer is, you shan’t do anything so 
damnably foolish.” Swept by a sudden whirl of 
anger that was utterly beyond him to control, he 
strode across the room, locked the door, tore out 
the key and flung it with all his force through the 
window. It fell tinkling on the stone flags of the 
yard. 

“Now that ends all this damned nonsense,” he 
said violently, and drew her roughly away from the 
window which he closed, and pulled the curtain 
across. 

The girl stood as if turned into stone. As the 
key fell, a cry escaped her. A cry so bitter with hate 
and loathing that he might well have shuddered if he 
had noted it. But he did not. He did not realise 
it was the death-cry of the last shred of love or 


82 


THE BEATING HEART 


feeling of allegiance to him that was left in her 
heart. 

The explosion of rage had helped Eric to become 
normal again. Having now secured, as he supposed, 
beyond all possibility of doubt, his own way, he 
became calmer. The brain-storm passed. He came 
up to where she stood, mute and motionless by the 
hearth. 

“Darling,” he said, attempting to draw her into 
his arms, “don’t be stupid and spoil all our pleasure. 
Have you forgotten how we looked forward to being 
like this alone together?” 

She wrenched herself away from him, and there 
was such a fury of resentment in her eyes that even 
he fell back from her with a confused sense of hav¬ 
ing made some fatal error. Women were intended 
by Nature to rule the world, not men, and that is 
why any attempt to coerce a woman by man gener¬ 
ally fails. 

“Don’t touch me,” she said in a voice low and 
sharp with the intensity of her anger. “You shall 
never touch me again.” 

“You seem tp forget you’re my wife,” he said 
hotly. 

“If I am fifty thousand times your wife I will 
never give myself to you. You can kill me first.” 

Eric stepped back and regarded her with dis¬ 
may. He was face to face now with a force which 
he could only dimly comprehend. But as the storm 
had passed from his brain, it had left his intellect 
fairly clear, and he began to see things were getting 


A NOVEL ELOPEMENT 


83 


serious. Somehow he was making a mess of it. 
Mechanically he turned away, fumbling in his pocket 
for his cigarette case. He drew out a cigarette, 
lighted it and began to smoke. What would be best 
to do, he wondered. Perhaps, if he said nothing 
she would calm down again. He rather wished he 
had not been so hasty. He wished he had put the 
key in his pocket instead of throwing it out of the 
window. There was no getting out of the room now 
for either of them. He regretted he had not been 
wiser and temporised more. 

Presently he threw himself into a chair, and 
watched her furtively. Her eyes were turned away 
towards the fire. She stood like a thing turned 
into stone. 

“What are we going to do, then?” he said, half 
banteringly, when the silence became unbearable. 
“Sit up all night?” 

“As you please,” the girl replied, without turning 
her head. He wondered what she was thinking 
about, and debated feverishly with himself what he 
should do or say. He would have been astonished 
if he could have known her thoughts. He had not 
the faintest conception of the character and the will 
he was dealing with. 

The girl stood there,—Herself, sunk utterly in 
her thought. How to gain her end and carry out 
the dog’s deliverance was the only thing that occu¬ 
pied her. Eric’s last words had suddenly flashed a 
light into her brain. For a moment, when the key 
had whizzed by her and clinked on the stones with- 


84 


THE BEATING HEART 


out, hope had died in her. It seemed so impossible 
then to ever reach the poor chained one down there 
in time, but now his words, “sit up all night” showed 
her suddenly the contrary proposition. If Eric were 
once asleep and she, alone awake in the room, she 
could effect her escape from it by the window. Her 
heart gave a suffocating leap upward as the whole 
plan unrolled itself like a map before her mental 
vision. Light and agile as a cat, it would be possible 
for her to swing herself down by knotted sheets to 
the yard, loose the prisoner, and with him run 
through the moon-lighted country, back to that sta¬ 
tion down the line their train had passed, and catch 
the first one back to London. It was all most dan¬ 
gerous and difficult, most open to failure, still it was 
a possible plan—if Eric were asleep. 

And with an infinite sense of horror and loathing, 
she realised the best and perhaps the only way to 
ensure his sleep was to reverse all she had said, to 
humiliate herself, to act a part, to give herself to 
him—and let him sleep. She saw his plan now was 
to sit up and smoke waiting and hoping she would 
change her mind. Time was passing, and each silver 
minute of the night brought the prisoner outside 
nearer to his doom. 

She suddenly bent her head down on the mantle- 
piece. Nothing she would hate so much now as the 
caress of this man in whose caresses she had once 
so rejoiced I These moments she had so looked for¬ 
ward to, how horrible, how terrible they were now! 
His embrace I Surely with that fury of resentment 


A NOVEL ELOPEMENT 


85 


in her heart, she would suffocate in it! But the dog 
had to be saved, and to accomplish that she would 
go through any suffering, any degradation. She 
drew herself together with a supreme effort of will, 
and turned to the man in the chair. 

“Eric, I am so sorry I spoke as I did. Let’s never 
mind about anything. Let’s forget it. Kiss me.” 

He had sprung to his feet at her first word. She 
was beside him now, looking up at him with her 
glorious eyes full of light and her face glowing with 
smiles, though her heart was shuddering within her. 

“Darling, my own, I am so sorry too,” Eric was 
covering her upturned face with kisses. “My dear¬ 
est, my very own.” 

Outside, the dog stood cold and stiff in the damp 
night air, aching with thirst, his poor, half-crazy 
eyes turned up to the moonlit sky from which no 
mercy came. The hours crept by, till the clock in 
the village struck three. For seven years he had 
listened to those strokes that marked the passing 
hours, hours that never brought him nearer to lib¬ 
erty, to the free use of his cramped limbs, to any of 
the natural joys for which he had been created. He 
sank wearily down on his haunches. He could no 
longer cry out; his voice seemed broken in his 
throat, his tongue was swollen and black. He kept 
his head turned to the window where he had seen 
the two figures stand looking at him. Some faint, 
dull hope had stirred in him that they might be 
thinking of Jjini, that they might be coming to him 
to alleviate his misery and his torment of thirst. 


86 


THE BEATING HEART 


But no, the window had been shut and had gone 
dark. 

Inside the room the strokes of the clock vibrated 
through the stillness, and Eva, lying open-eyed and 
filled with desperate impatience, slid noiselessly out 
of bed, and with soundless movements and feverish 
haste began to dress. Eric was asleep. Never in 
all her life had she prayed for anything so fervently 
as she did now that he might remain so. With in¬ 
finite caution she crept about the room, making her 
toilet to the minutest detail. Within her all her per¬ 
sonal self felt humiliated, outraged, seething with 
fury, but she would not think of herself, only of the 
work ahead to be done. 

Hurry generally means noise. Therefore, filled 
with burning impatience as she was, she had to move 
slowly, regulating each movement and each tip-toe 
step. Once Eric moved and sighed, and she started 
in terror and stood motionless, but he did not awake, 
and with a thumping heart and trembling fingers she 
went on with her preparations. When she was fully 
dressed to her hat, and with her gloves and purse 
stowed away in her bodice, together with Eric’s 
clasp-knife that he had left lying on the table, she 
approached the unoccupied bed standing in the 
corner by the window, and inch by inch drew the 
sheets from it. These alone would have been too 
short a length for her purpose even when knotted 
together at their extreme ends, but she took the coun¬ 
terpane as well, and all three end to end she judged 
would let her nearly to the ground. At their country 


A NOVEL ELOPEMENT 


87 


place at home her father had shown her how to 
escape in case of fire, and she knew now exactly what 
to do. She knotted the corner of the sheet tightly 
round the little wooden post of the bed, and then 
there was the barrier of the window to be sur¬ 
mounted. She did not dare to draw back the cur¬ 
tains for fear of the rattle of their rings, but she 
lifted them slowly and silently to one side and then 
with both hands and infinite care, guided the spring 
blind up and looked out. Her heart gave a leap 
of boundless sympathy as she saw the great dog sit¬ 
ting at the end of his tightly-drawn chain, still gazing 
towards the window^—his only hope—as he had been 
hours ago. 

No Juliet felt more eager to join her Romeo 
than this girl did now to get to the suffering animal 
and soothe its pain. And of such natures is the 
Kingdom of Heaven. Such people are those who 
make this ,earth a little less like hell. Blind and 
curtain out of the way, it still remained to open 
the window without noise. Very, very softly with 
indrawn breath and shaking heart, she raised it 
half way, just enough to let her through. Then she 
paid out her long rope of knotted bedclothes, and 
looking out, she saw it reached to within about 
eight feet of the yard. Then, as often before in the 
fire drill, she crept on to the window sill, twisted her 
feet well round the dangling cloths and gripped 
them hard in her little hands. Then down, down 
she swung her light weight and dropped at length 
noiselessly to the ground. The captive in the yard 


88 


THE BEATING HEART 


rose to his feet and lowered his head, staring at her 
fixedly, but he gave no sound. Some instinct seemed 
to tell him that all this strange proceeding had some¬ 
thing to do with him. 

The girl, once out of the room and away from the 
sleeping man she had sworn to love and honour and 
cleave to till death, felt such a rush of joyous elation 
that it seemed to give her wings. Quite half her 
work was successfully accomplished. She ran swift 
and silent as a shadow across the yard. 

As he realised she was actually coming to him, the 
enormous dog tore at his chain, and as he could 
not advance he reared himself on his hind legs, his 
front pawing at the air, his eyes almost out of his 
head, his foaming jaws wide open. It was a fear¬ 
some sight, but the girl went on unflinchingly, 
straight up to the desperate animal. Tall as she 
was the dog stood as high as herself, and as she 
reached him his great bony, shaggy paws descended 
heavily on her shoulders, and she put both her arms 
out under them and clasped him to her warm, loving 
breast. And the animal enveloped in that marvelous 
electricity that flowed out from her, soothed and 
calmed instantly by that contact with true loving 
humanity which he had longed for all through his 
dreary life stood perfectly still, all his raging pulses 
calmed, all his tormenting pains dying away. 

‘‘Darling, be good now while I release you,” she 
said in his ear, and gently let him slide to his four 
feet. Then she knelt down beside him and put her 
hands to his collar. 


A NOVEL ELOPEMENT 


89 


The dog understood perfectly she had come to 
release him. At last, at last he would be free, and 
he stood patient and still as a statue, only his whole 
frame quivered and thrilled with joy. He felt her 
little fingers trying desperately to undo the hateful 
collar. Eva’s heart beat almost to choke her. Sup¬ 
pose, suppose she failed to get it undone. Seven 
years had solidified the leather almost into iron; the 
brass point that pierced the leather was embedded 
in and had become one almost with it. 

Both were welded together under a thick coat of 
verdigris. Every nail on her fingers was broken 
before she gave up the hopeless task of unstrapping 
it. Then, keeping one hand on the dog’s head, she 
felt in her bosom for the knife. 

Because she understood him so perfectly, and that 
his loneliness and forsaken neglect had been the 
chief sorrow of his life, she knew just how to man¬ 
age him. When she failed to undo the collar, he 
felt his heart die within him and had she moved 
away from him, his poor desperate brain would have 
given way. But she kept quite close to him and that 
told him that all hope was not lost, and nerved him 
to patience. The collar was loose for the hair had 
been rubbed and the neck wasted away which had 
filled it, and there was room for the knife-blade to 
pass under the leather. 

“Hold still, now, don’t move,” she whispered in 
tense tones, and then sawed with all her strength, 
outwards on the collar. 


90 


THE BEATING HEART 


It seemed incredibly hard, but the knife was 
sharp and leather must in the end yield to steel. 

After minutes' that seemed hours she cut it 
through, and with one great bound the dog leapt 
away from chain and collar. Free! Free in the 
moonlit night! Eva rose to her feet, and he came 
back to her, lowering his great body down to the 
earth on his fore-paws, and then springing to his full 
height to put them on her breast to show his rapture. 
Elated, joyous, but still in terror of being overtaken, 
Eva threw one rapid glance over the silent house 
and up to the window where her long white rope 
hung gleaming in the moonlight. 

Then “Come,” she said to the dog, and close, side 
by side, they raced out of the yard by the door just 
behind where he had been chained. A door that 
was never fastened for he had guarded it so faith¬ 
fully and securely. Out of the yard and through 
the wasty farmyard adjoining, then over the low 
wall surrounding oit, and they were out on the slope, 
tearing away like mad things to the shelter of the 
wood. 

Here they continued to run, down the narrow, 
mossy path that Eric and she had come by, filled 
with such different feelings the evening before. 
Silent now, with all their strength given to speed, 
but with perfect union of intention, they steadied 
down to an even trot, the dog modifying his pace to 
the human being’s. He knew that she had saved 
him, freed him, and he was now her faithful slave 
for life. No evil, no danger should come near her. 


A NOVEL ELOPEMENT 


91 


No enemy could lay a finger on her as long as an 
atom of strength remained in him to defend her. 
He was hers and she was his till death. 

At last they reached the spot where the train had 
pulled up the previous evening, and Eva, still 
hounded by the fear of pursuit, after a few minutes’ 
rest, ran on steadily, taking a little path that passed 
beneath evergreens near the railway. 

The station down the line was thirteen miles dis¬ 
tant, yet such is the force of joy and the power of 
will and determination that the girl felt hardly 
fatigued when she saw the red and green lights ahead 
of her; and she walked into the booking office with 
a light and springing step as the yawning clerk 
opened it. 

The next train to London, the first in the day to 
carry the mails, left in fifteen minutes. She took her 
ticket and a dog ticket, and went out on to the plat¬ 
form and sat down. She felt such happiness, such 
joy in her success, her accomplished plan, that noth¬ 
ing in her life had equalled it, and all sense of pain 
and tiredness were entirely drowned in it. 

The dog was more distressed than she. He fell 
heavily at her feet as she sat down. He was foot¬ 
sore, his limbs ached and he was oh, so thirsty, but 
he minded nothing. He was content. 

Eva had been afraid to wait to give him water, 
but she bent over him now, looking anxiously at 
his swollen, hanging tongue. He did not ask for 
anything, only looked up at her with great eyes from 
which the wildness was already dying away; for had 


92 


THE BEATING HEART 


he not felt a soft hand on his head and heard a kind 
voice in his ear? 

She rose to seek water for him, and, stiff and sore 
though he was, he dragged himself to his feet to fol¬ 
low her. He could not bear her to move away from 
him. 

There was a little tap of water standing out from 
the wall further down the platform, and stooping 
down, she turned it on and made a little bowl of her 
two small, pink-palmed hands for him to drink from. 
At first he seemed hardly able to swallow, nor get 
the water over his swollen tongue, but she waited 
patiently, and at last he drank easily and freely as 
long as she thought good for him. Then they 
walked back to the seat and she sat down and took 
his head on her knees and smoothed back the harsh, 
rough hair and looked deep into his eyes, and they 
talked together, as lovers do, in looks and silence. 

At last the train arrived, and the guard of it came 
along, swinging his lantern. He stopped when he 
caught sight of her daintily-dressed figure, and the 
huge, rough wolfhound at her side. She turned to 
him, her hand on the carriage door. 

“Can I take him in the carriage with me?” she 
asked. 

The guard flashed his light over them. 

“Yes, that’ll be all right. The train’s almost 
empty,” he replied, eyeing the dog. He was not at 
all anxious to have the grim-looking beast shut up 
with him in his van. 

“Not many people travels at this time of night,” 


A NOVEL ELOPEMENT 


93 


he added inquisitively, looking in at her after she 
was seated and the dog had dropped onto the floor 
of the carriage. 

Eva made no response, and he turned away mum¬ 
bling in a dissatisfied tone: “Runaways and eloping 
couples, thieves and such—them’s wot travels at 
night.” 

Two or three minutes more of this anguished sus¬ 
pense and then the train started, gathered speed and 
they were away—safe. She leant over the dog with 
a joyous laugh. Oh, the relief of that moving train! 
Not Eric nor Bates, nor all the farm hands could 
overtake them now. 

“He talked of eloping couples; that’s just what 
we are, aren’t we, darling?” And the dog beat 
his great, waving brush of a tail on the carriage 
floor for answer. She sat back in a corner, for the 
first time realising that she was very tired, but the 
joy at her heart glowed more fiercely every moment 
as the train rushed on its non-stop run to town. She 
had done it all; she had succeeded so admirably. She 
had saved the dog. She did not believe they could 
be separated now. If Bates sued her for stealing 
his dog she was ready to pay his full value which 
the farmer would probably prefer; and Eric ? What 
would he do or say or think when he woke and 
found himself alone in the room where he had locked 
himself? Would he climb down the sheets as she 
had done? She wondered and laughed. But what¬ 
ever he did he should never approach her again. 

Arrived in town she went straight to her sister, 


94 


THE BEATING HEART 


a girl of twenty, widowed in the War, who had 
always strenuously disapproved of Eric. Brushing 
past the astonished footman in the hall, she ran up¬ 
stairs and found the beautiful Linda still in bed. 
She sat up in astonishment as Eva and the great 
hound burst into the rpom. 

“Linda, I’ve eloped!” 

“Well, you are modern! You were only married 
yesterday!” 

“I know,” Eva answered, sitting down in a deep 
armchair, “but I found I hadn’t married the man 
I meant to after all, but somebody else that I didn’t 
like at all.” 

“We most of us do that,” returned Linda, swing¬ 
ing two ivory feet out of bed and eyeing the dog: 

“What a beautiful dog What’s he doing here?” 

Few would have applied that adjective to the 
great creature stretched before her. But Linda saw 
through the devastation man had made to the orig¬ 
inal beauty given by Nature. 

“He is the cause of everything. I eloped with 
/ziw.” 

“What do you mean? Tell me everything, now, 
from the beginning,” and Linda wrapped herself in 
a rose-hued gown and settled herself to listen. The 
dog stretched himself out on his side between them 
and fell asleep, worn out, not so much by the phys¬ 
ical exertions as the conflicting emotions of the night. 

Eva told all; shortly, incisively. Only once did 
she give rein to her feelings—when she had to tell 


A NOVEL ELOPEMENT 


95 


how she had bought Eric’s passivity and sleep—she 
sprang up with her hands clenched into knots. 

“If I have a child by him, I’ll kill it before it 
breathes!” she ex:claimed. “What is the good of 
multiplying callous brutes like that?” 

Linda listened attentively to the end. Then she 
rose and rang the bell. 

“You poor thing, you must be quite worn out. 
What you want is breakfast first and then sleep.” 

“But did I do rightly? Do tell me what you 
think, Lin.” 

“Of course I think so, and I think you have made 
a good exchange. A dog will never disappoint you 
—never go back on you—never be unkind to you, 
never be unfaithful to you and a man will—always.” 

Eva sighed, leaning back and closing her eyes. 

“It’s so good to be back with you, Lin.” 

The maid brought in hot coffee, and a huge break¬ 
fast tray of delicious edibles, and the girls laughed 
and talked as they ate, and the dog who had had 
bones flung to him on the flags, had a pile of delicate 
curly slices of bacon on a hand-painted porcelain 
dish. After breakfast Linda insisted on Eva going 
to bed, and there in that soundless room the girl 
and dog slept away the morning hours. 

In the afternoon Eric came, and Eva went down 
to see him in the library. 

“What does all this mean?” he asked as she closed 
the door and stood facing him. 

“I am not coming back to you. Linda has asked 
me to stay with her, and I have accepted.” 


96 


THE BEATING HEART 


“But you married me!” 

“No, that’s where you make the mistake. I mar¬ 
ried a dream man, a man of my own imagination, a 
man who was decent and kind and humane, quite 
different from you altogether.” 

Eric flushed a dull, angry red. 

“You consummated the marriage with me any¬ 
how; you won’t deny that, I suppose?” he said. 

A look of intense repulsion came over her face. 

“For the dog’s sake, I gave myself to you, though 
I loathed you,” she answered in a low tone, full of 
repressed vehemence. 

“For the dog’s sake,” repeated Eric, growing 
more and more bewildered and less and less able to 
solve the problem that woman always presents to 
man. “How? I don’t understand.” 

“You had determined to sit up all night and pre¬ 
vent me going to him; if I had had any chloroform 
or any drug to put you to sleep I would have given 
it to you. I had nothing but myself so I gave you 
that.” 

She was standing close to him and looking straight 
into his eyes. The gaze was relentless and bright 
as the blade of a sword. 

“But your kisses—your wonderful passion—^your 
insistence—” he stammered. 

“It was all for his sake. I tell you, I hated and 
loathed you.” 

“It was damned good acting then.” 

“It could hardly exceed yours during our engage¬ 
ment,” she flashed back. 


A NOVEL ELOPEMENT 


97 


“Acting, no, it was prostitution,” he said with a 
sudden storm of anger, “if what you say now is 
true.” 

“Perhaps; you may call it what you please. I 
would do anything in the world to save a helpless 
and suffering animal and be proud of it,” she 
answered. 

Eric turned away and took a few paces up the 
long room. She angered him. In a way he longed 
to strike her for what she said to him, but the mem¬ 
ory of last night clung to him and held him. It had 
been so wonderful, so perfect, her love, real or as¬ 
sumed; she looked now so bright, so true, so 
undaunted, he longed for her, coveted her more than 
ever he had done in the past. He could not imagine 
how they had drifted into this mess. He had tried 
hard to please her during their engagement and had 
succeeded. He had won her. How had he lost her 
so soon? He did not know what to say, nor how 
to act. And all about this stupid dog; he would kill 
the beast if he could get hold of it. 

“What can we do now?” he said, at last in a tone 
of bewildered perplexity. 

“We must get a divorce. I believe it can be 
managed somehow. Your wife has eloped, deserted 
you, refuses to come back, go to a lawyer and see 
what he can do for you. If those charges are not 
enough, I have done more for I married a good man, 
and my wedding night was passed with somebody 
else, another totally different man. If a lawyer can’t 
twist that into cause for divorce, he can’t be much of 


98 


THE BEATING HEART 


a lawyer. I don’t want to spoil your whole life, so I 
give you leave to say anything you like about me.” 

And before he had realised it, she had opened the 
door and had gone, and though he stormed and 
swore and summoned the servants and Linda came 
down to him, nothing would induce Eva to see him 
again. 

She vanished from him and all he could do was 
to follow her advice and seek consolation of his 
lawyers. 

About a year later, had anyone passed through 
the scarlet land of poppies at Cromer, he would have 
seen two girls sitting among them, looking out to 
the hazy sea, and a great wolfhound lying between 
them. He has been christened Joy, and his sparkling 
eye and glossy coat, his rounded’ form and waving 
brush of a tail all speak to the appropriateness of 
his name. 

He and Eva are inseparable and he understands 
her looks, her tones, her words. He understands 
her far better than Eric ever had, and at any moment 
he would lay down his life joyfully for her sake. 

“I see that Eric has married again, Eva,” Linda 
said presently. “So now you are really and truly 
free. Do you think you will ever marry again, your¬ 
self?” 

“Not while Joy lives,” Eva answered, her little 
hand resting on his neck and buried in its thick, 
glossy black hair. “I would never give him a rival. 
The next man might want to chain him up in the 


A NOVEL ELOPEMENT 


99 


yard! Then we’d have to run away again, wouldn’t 
we, Joy?” 

And the great dog leapt to his feet and gave a 
deep, musical bark in answer, bounding backwards 
and forwards and leaping up to them as the two girls 
rose and wended their way slowly through the pop¬ 
pies, emblems of peace and forgetfulness, home. 


THE JEWEL CASKET 

The wind howled miserably round the great Lon¬ 
don station and pierced the thin, worn clothing of 
Jim Thorn and Bill Smith as they loitered, hands 
in pockets, near the mouth of one of the draughty 
passages. 

It was a bitter January evening and neither inside 
them nor outside them had the men anything to keep 
them warm. 

“It ain’t no sort of use. Bill,” remarked Jim, 
drearily, after a long silence during which both men 
had been gazing across the wide space filled with 
moving figures to where the refreshment buffet threw 
out its warm and cheery glow speaking of the tempt¬ 
ing delights within. “We shan’t get a job here to¬ 
night. There’s too many reg’lar porters about.” 
He was a thin, spare man, with a long white face in 
which shone two grey eyes of a kindly expression. 
Once a good gardener, ill-health and ill-luck had 
brought him to evil days. 

“Go on with yer! Who came here after a job?” 
snarled the other, in every way a contrast to his com¬ 
panion: thick-set and heavy, bull-necked, long-lipped 
and cruel-eyed. “It’s pinching we’re after and I’ll 
get something tonight or I’m not Bill Smith.” 
He finished his sentence with an oath. The other 
made no reply, only sank into a still more slouching 
100 


THE JEWEL CASKET 


lOI 


position against the wall. The crowd of passengers 
before them had swelled. There were many coming 
out from the ticket office following well-filled trucks 
of luggage. It was not long now to the departure of 
a favorite express into Kent. Jim Thorn’s gaze 
drifted about the throng until it lighted on a girl’s 
figure, one of a newly-arrived party, and there it 
remained. His eyes followed her about with inter¬ 
est, not because he thought she had anything to 
“pinch,” but because, in his own instinctive, unedu¬ 
cated way, he loved all pretty things. She was a very 
pretty young lady in her plain dark clothes and her 
heavy furs, with a slim tall figure and golden curly 
hair peeping out from underneath her small black 
velvet hat. Jim looked at her with pleasure. He 
quite forgot about the hot coffee he had been dream¬ 
ing of in watching her dainty movements. 

It did not occur to him to envy her furs or her 
warm clothing, nor to be wrathful with her that she 
had them, and he had not. His mind was not of 
the Socialist order. He no more expected her to 
give him her cloak than he expected himself to give 
his coat to one who had only waistcoat and trousers. 
Her cloak was hers and his coat was his, and could 
he have explained his mental attitude in words, he 
would have told you that he was jolly glad that the 
same law and order that enabled the lady to keep 
her cloak, also gave him the right to keep his coat 
and not have it torn off his back by one poorer than 
he. Although the companion of a thief, he was by 
nature a respecter of property. 


102 


THE BEATING HEART 


Suddenly he felt a great grab on his arm, and Bill 
bent his large red face close to him. 

“Look there!” he whispered excitedly. “The very 
thing I was looking for. See that party?” 

Jim, following with his gaze Bill’s outstretched 
finger, saw to his dismay that it indicated the very 
young girl he had been so admiring. 

“See that little case she has?” pursued his com¬ 
panion in his thick, beery accents. “Mark my words, 
that a jool case!” His mouth was close to Jim’s 
ear now. “P’raps dimonds, maybe pearls.” He let 
fly these imposing words like darts into Jim’s ear. 

Jim straightened up and strained his eyes to see 
what the girl was carrying. It certainly did look 
most inviting. A little square, rather deep case of 
some dark wood, clamped carefully on all sides with 
metal, and with a handle on the top through which 
the dainty hand of its owner was passed. It looked 
as if pearls or diamonds might be lying on cotton 
wool inside, and yet the sentimental Jim felt he did 
not want that young lady robbed. 

“It’s a bit small,” he ventured lamely, in a dis¬ 
couraging tone. 

The burly one gave a contemptuous grunt. “Much 
good you^d be at the game without me,” he an¬ 
swered. “Haven’t you never heard wot’s good 
comes in small parcels? Don’t you know that small 
and valuable, easy to sell and light to carry should 
be the pinchers’ motto? I’m onto that there jool 
carsket, if I dies for it.” 

“But you don’t know what’s in it,” argued Jim. 


THE JEWEL CASKET 


103 

“Maybe it’s just a purse with not much, in, an’ a 
ticket, an’ a hanky.” 

The other sniffed scornfully, his gaze glued on the 
girl’s hand as he answered: 

“You just watch, as I do, an’ don’t talk so much. 
I’ve watched and watched that girl till I knows 
wot’s in that carsket as well as I knows wot’s in my 
pocket. ’Ow do I know? Well, because she’s that 
careful of it. She looks down at that little box 
every half-minute and just now, when she set it down 
for a second and the porter comes by, up she snatches 
it again and holds it to her, and w’en just now 
someone wanted to take it off her while she fastened 
her jacket, she shakes her head and clings on all the 
time.” 

“It’ll take some doing to get it,” replied Jim, with 
intensifying gloom. 

“I can manage it,” returned Bill, swelling out his 
chest. “You’ll see. I’ll always take trouble for 
jools, and jools they is. Girls don’t go on like that 
about anything else.” 

“P’raps it’s her young man’s picture,” suggested 
the sentimental Jim in a last hope of changing his 
companion’s intention, though the little square box 
with its clamp did not suggest a portrait-case. 

The light from where the men stood was not 
very good and the dark case sank indistinguishably 
into the shadow of the girl’s dress. Bill could not 
see to his satisfaction what shape and look it really 
had but the girl’s intense sol^icitude for it carried 
complete conviction to his mind which was unable to 


104 


THE BEATING HEART 


imagine anything being of value except what could 
be turned into cash. 

The conversation came to an end as the crowd of 
passengers moved toward the barrier. It was time 
for action and the two thieves mingled with the 
stream of hurrying humanity and pressed closely up 
behind the party to which the girl with the jewel-case 
belonged. She was certainly very careful of it. She 
held it tightly and firmly to her so that it could not 
be caught or brushed out of her grasp by any jostling 
or hustling movement and she constantly glanced 
down on it as if to assure herself of its safety. The 
train had not come up and the throng swayed back 
again, Bill and Jim moving naturally with it, but 
always quite close to the girl. They were, though 
thinly and poorly dressed, not ragged, or in their 
aspect in any way likely to attract attention. Bill, 
especially, had adapted for the occasion quite a trav¬ 
eling appearance and had a light overcoat on one 
arm. True it was only a bit of an overcoat, but 
when skilfully draped on the arm, looked quite well 
and might have its uses. Their quarry now ap¬ 
proached the book-stall to the delight of Bill, but 
though the girl stopped to look with interest at the 
books and papers and even purchased one of the lat¬ 
ter, she never once set down the little box. The 
train was now due and the passengers thickly 
bunched near the barrier to the platform. Once 
through the barrier the girl would be, as Jim put it 
to himself, “safe,” for he really did not want to see 
that box filched from her slender hand, and as Bill 


THE JEWEL CASKET 


105 


put it to Hmself, “lorst.” He felt desperate and 
was just inwardly cursing his luck when luck itself 
favoured him. The girl was standing chatting to 
the older persons of her group, presumably her 
parents, when a young man, leading a fat terrier, 
hurriedly joined the throng round the gates. Bill’s 
eye fell on the dog, and he instantly moved to the 
side of the girl farthest from the young man. With 
a movement of his hand he attracted the dog’s atten¬ 
tion, and next moment the chain was wound round 
the girl’s ankles. The dog-owner pulled at the chain, 
but to free herself she had to take it from his hand, 
and to do so, for one moment, she set the box down 
beside her. In the second, while she stooped over 
the dog. Bill’s great hand dropped on the box. It 
was lifted and under his hanging coat, and he and 
Jim sifted themselves out of the press of passengers 
now swaying to the gates which had just been opened. 
Calmly, quietly, with blank faces, Jim and Bill 
crossed the station to the exit, hearing in their rear 
a sort of confused clamour which told them the 
owner of the box had discovered her loss. 

No one stopped them, no one looked at them. 
They slipped through the wind-swept passage, and 
in a few seconds were out in the street; still without 
apparent haste, but at a good pace, they turned down 
a side alley and made a short cut for “home.” As 
they turned down one silent, dark street, Bill, swell¬ 
ing with satisfaction, opened out on his companion. 

“Now you see wot it is. But for me you’d never 
have got this necklace, or tiary, whichever it is, an’ 


io6 


THE BEATING HEART 


we might have stayed grubbin’ at ’ome all winter. 
Now we’ll have a trip abroad for it won’t do to try 
and sell ’em here. It ain’t safe for pearls and 
dimonds.” 

“We don’t know yet that they is pearls and di¬ 
monds,” objected Jim. 

“There you go. You haven’t the brain to hima- 
gine anything,” returned Bill loftily. “And what 
do you think a young lady would be carrying—her¬ 
self—personally, mind, when she had a strappin’ 
maid walking behind her with a dressing-case a 
yard square. Maybe you’d have gone for that 
dressing-case,” he added, with a crushing sneer. 
“That’s the ornary brain all over. Sees what’s just 
ahead an’ no more; goes for the gilt-topped bottles 
and lets the tiarys go. Now p’raps when we’ve sold 
the jools and are getting a fling on the Continnong 
you’ll be grateful you’ve got such a partner and you 
won’t be so narsty about it.” 

It was a bitter night; sleeting now and with scur¬ 
ries of icy wind and snow. In the sky a moon was 
struggling up amongst thick black clouds, the streets 
and alleys through which they passed were slippery, 
wet and dark. Arrived at a dingy building with a 
gaping open doorway, they groped their way up an 
unlighted stone staircase and reached their “pitch” 
at the top in safety. Bill marched In first with the 
air of a conqueror, and Jim followed, bolting the 
door after him. There was a little light from the 
remains of a smouldering fire In the grate. 

Jim stirred It into a blaze and fed it with some 


THE JEWEL CASKET 107 

split-up egg-boxes, and Bill turned on the gas and 
lighted it. 

“That’s my job,” he said, setting down the little 
dark case on the table, “and a neat bit of work I 
calls it, and that dawg helped wonderful.” 

Jim regarded it mournfully. Odd though it may 
seem this strange waif of humanity was not thinking 
of the rich contents; he was wondering what the 
poor young lady was feeling at having lost it. 

The light revealed a curious den in which these 
two lived. A folding bed of ancient date with one 
side sagging to the floor, in the corner. A capacious 
cupboard in the wall through the half-open door of 
which strange and various articles were protruding, 
a table in the centre with scattered tin cups and 
plates and battered tin teapot on it and on the 
window ledge a cracked flower-pot with a primrose- 
root growing in it—^Jim’s. 

“Now, then,” said Bill, “let’s have a look.” He 
took up the box and turned it round. “Why, blimey, 
it hasn’t a lock,” he exclaimed, rather blankly, “That 
don’t look like jools—only a bit of a catch like this, 
and two ’oles each side. Wot the ’Ell’s that for?” 

With fingers beginning to tremble, he forced up 
the brass catch and then tore open the lid, and then 
both men who had been bending forward over their 
treasure, collapsed suddenly speechless, on the two 
chairs, and sat opposite to each other staring across 
the table, for there within the box was no necklace 
of rare pearls reposing on velvet cushions, but a neat 


io8 


THE BEATING HEART 


little nest of hay, from the centre of which looked 
out with enquiring eyes—two white mice! 

Very dainy silk-like coats of the purest white on 
which the gas-light gleamed, tiny pink paws of the 
palest shelMike pink, little white ears delicate as a 
butterfly’s wing and large eyes like glowing rubies. 
Gentle and not dreaming that anyone could hurt 
them, they looked up at the staring faces of the men 
over them, unafraid, and began polishing their noses 
with their tiny paws. 

Bill recovered from the shock first. With a foul 
oath, he sprang to his feet and made a grab at the 
box, but Jim was too quick for him. With one of his 
agile movements that made him such an invaluable 
thief, he snatched away the box before Bill’s heavy 
hand reached it, snapped down its lid and held it 
firmly in both hands against his chest. 

“Wot yer goin’ to do with it?” he asked. 

For full ten seconds. Bill swore all the best oaths 
he knew. 

“Do with it?” he roared at the finish. “Throw 
it on the fire and see those vermin burn alive—^you 
just give it me!” 

Jim turned pale and clutched the box tighter. 

“Now, Bill, you’d never do such a thing,” he 
urged anxiously. “They’s done you no harm and its 
crool to burn them; no good’d come of it, besides the 
lidy was fond of ’em, you saw that yourself, and 
maybe there’ll be a reward. Here’s a nime and 
address on the box.” 

This was sound sense, but Bill was blind and deaf 


THE JEWEL CASKET 


109 


with fury. No oaths nor mere words could suffice 
to vent his rage. Some horrible violence and cruelty 
alone could do that. He made a lunge across the 
ricketty table, but Jim avoided him and backed 
against the wall. He was pale, but his eyes shone 
with an indomitable light. A frail, small man 
with a poor physique and little health or strength 
but there was a spirit in him that had often 
stood up to and conquered the big bully before. He 
saw now this might be a fight to the death, but he 
just felt he didn’t care. He would be crushed to a 
pulp first before Bill got hold of the box and burned 
those two little innocent things inside. His blood 
was up and on its tide had risen that wonderful deter¬ 
mination that can make one weak man equal to ten 
strong ones. Bill was round the table in an instant 
and let fly at him a blow from his ponderous fist 
which he meant to stretch him senseless, but Jim 
dodged and it only caught the corner of his eye and 
his lean arm seemed locked like steel across the box 
on his chest and Bill wrenched at it in vain. 

Does some great current of electricity come into 
being with that mental fixity of purpose and lend a 
determined combatant a strength altogether beyond 
his own? 

It seemed so to Jim. He seemed full of some 
living force as he dodged round the table and chairs 
and over the bed and Bill came floundering after 
him, cursing and sending his blows wide of the mark. 
At last Jim found himself close to the door and 
with a monkey’s quickness shot back the bolt and fell 


I lO 


THE BEATING HEART 


through the opening door. Bill grabbed him by the 
neck, but Jim wriggled so furiously that both men 
fell in a heap on the top stair and then rolled to the 
bottom. As they bumped onto the last step, Bill’s 
hands sank from the other’s neck and while Jim 
scrambled to his feet he lay inert and crumpled on 
the lowest stair. 

Jim, breathless, his thin clothing torn and one 
eye closed, but still gripping the box to his body, ran 
out into the street and to the nearest lamp-post. 
There under the wavering light he read the address 
on the casket-lid: 

Miss Torrington 
Hailstone Hall 
Sevenoaks, Kent. 

All the time Bill had been chasing him round the 
attic a resolution had been forming in his mind. If 
he escaped with his life he would take the box and its 
little inmates back to the young “lidy.” 

For years past in his low degraded existence this 
man’s soul had vaguely yearned after goodness, as a 
plant in a dark cellar strains with its colourless leaves 
towards its native light, but there was little oppor¬ 
tunity in his life overshadowed by Bill for anything 
but crime. He hated Bill but he couldn’t get away 
from him. He had not the strength of mind to say 
good-bye to the daring pal who kept the attic sup¬ 
plied with bread and beer and knew exactly how to 
utilise in his petty thievings the sharp agility of 
Jim. But now to-night was the end of it all. Bill 


THE JEWEL CASKET 


111 


was down and out and the way lay clear ^to a good 
action, and standing there in the biting cold with 
his bleeding eye and bruised body, he thrilled through 
and through with joy. He had done something al¬ 
ready. He had foiled his companion’s brutal in¬ 
tention, he had saved the animals, and now if he 
could restore the “lidy’s” property to her safe and 
sound he felt he would be content no matter what 
happened to himself. Possibly the thought of a 
reward struggled for "life at the back of his mind, 
but it was not the prompting motive, and there was 
a risk of being turned over to the law and to prison 
on returning the property, which far out-balanced 
the possible reward. To have kept on the right 
side of his partner and destroyed the stolen goods, 
as a business proposition, was far better, but the 
thought of the lady’s pleasure and the joy of the 
little creatures that had looked out so confidingly 
at him, attracted him just as the primrose blossoms 
pleased his eyes when they bloomed in the Spring on 
his window ledge. 

Sevenoaks! Not so far away—a matter of 
twenty-four mile. He had tramped it before in the 
hop-picking season; he could tramp it again. It was 
a freezing night, but the moon was getting up, and 
if he had luck he would be there in the morning. 
He raised the lid of the casket and looked in to see 
if his treasures were still safe. Yes, there they lay 
close side by side, like tiny snowballs tucked down 
in the hay which had protected them through all the 
scuffling with Bill and the roll down the stairs. 


I 12 


THE BEATING HEART 


Jim carefully snapped to the lid and put the box 
under his arm for shelter against the searching wind. 
Then aching and shaky in body but dauntless in mind 
he set out for his tramp to Sevenoaks. When the 
city and its pitiless streets were left behind him and 
he had once reached the open country road he felt 
happier. Here there were no police to pass with a 
quaking heart as they sternly eyed his blood-stained 
face and torn coat. He stepped out more strongly 
as the night wind of the countryside blew in his face. 
It was cold but not so damp and cruel as London’s 
breath. He looked over the hedge-tops across the 
wide meadows with the shadowy form of sleeping 
cattle; he looked at the trees arching over him and 
the tracery of their shadows on his path, at the sky 
with the moon riding high in it through bands of 
scurrying clouds, and he felt he loved it all. Won¬ 
derful indeed, as the Latin poet sang, is the joy of 
the mind conscious of its own right doing, and won¬ 
derful also is the dominion of man’s mind over his 
body. Jim, the poor, penniless tramp, hungry and 
empty and aching, footsore, weary and cold, 
marched on full of the greatest joy of his life be¬ 
cause his mind told him he was doing right. Many 
doubts and fears beset him and much anxious ques¬ 
tioning as to his reception and his fate but nothing 
could quell that springing sense of joy in his heart 
as mile after mile fell behind him. When the first 
red light of morning lit up the sky, it shewed a for¬ 
lorn and limping figure with a drawn and haggard 


THE JEWEL CASKET 


113 

face, but with a proud, glad light in its one uninjured 
eye. 

The great gates of Hailstone Hall looked impos¬ 
ing enough, shut tight in frosty splendour of twisted 
ironwork, but they were not locked and Jim pushed 
them open with an unfaltering hand. The drive 
winding between the velvet green of t^l evergreen 
trees and with gleaming bands of sparkling frost on 
each side, lay before him silent and solitary save 
for the birds hopping across it, and Jim walked 
straight up the middle of it and found himself with 
a beating heart on the steps before the big front 
door. No slinking round by the back door for him 
with that proud consciousness of right in his breast. 
He wanted no delays and parleys with impeding and 
inquisitive servants. He felt weak and his strength 
failing; with the last bit of it he wanted to put the 
box himself straight into the lady’s hand, and then 
what became of him did not seem to matter at all. 

The door opened in response to his modest ring 
and a young footman looked out at him with blank 
astonishment. 

“Please can I see Miss Torrington,” said Jim. 
“I’ve something for her which she wants very par¬ 
ticular.” 

He had thought this sentence out with care, and 
it certainly showed ingenuity in its suggestion of the 
lady’s desire to see him. 

The door was not slammed in his face as he feared 
it might be. The young footman held it, still staring 
at him in silence. As he said afterwards in the 


THE BEATING HEART 


114 

servants’ hall, “I was that surprised at his cheek com¬ 
ing to the front door in his condition I couldn’t say 
nothing.” 

At that moment the butler chanced to cross the 
hall and seeing the open door and the intruder on 
the steps, approached. A tall, portly man the butler, 
who would have made about four of Jim. As he 
came up the frail one clutched still harder the box 
against his bony ribs. “Good Lord, if she should 
drop upon me. I’m done,” was the thought that 
dashed thorough his brain. Nothing of the kind 
happened, however. 

“My good man,” said the butler benevolently, 
“what is it you want?” 

Jim repeated his fine phrase, but stammering a 
little as his weakness gained on him. 

“Very good,” replied the butler blandly, “Give 
me what you have and I will give it to Miss Tor- 
rington.” 

Jim’s heart thumped, and the hall seemed mov¬ 
ing round him, but he stuck to his purpose. 

“Twenty-four miles,” he stammered with blue 
lips. “Give it ’er myself.” 

The butler looked him over. He was a man of 
some brains, or perhaps he would not have been but¬ 
ler to Miss Torrington on a comfortable salary. 
He met the clear determined gaze of Jim’s one un¬ 
closed eye and read perhaps something in it that 
made him sign to Jim to enter and the footman 
to close the door. Then he said: “If you wait here 
I will enquire if Miss Torrington wishes to see you.” 


THE JEWEL CASKET 


115 

Jim stood still as a post just inside the door and 
erect, though everything was getting uncertain round 
him, and the footman lounged watching him. 

Though a thief by profession and accustomed to 
be so styled and considered, a feeling of amusement 
stirred in Jim that the man should mount guard over 
him here. 

“As if I’d steal a thing off ’er,” passed through 
him, and somehow this new feeling of pride and self- 
respect he had been indulging in was so delightful 
he thought he would never steal another thing as 
long as he lived. 

Jim did not know how long he waited, but it 
seemed a world of time, and then a swift, light step 
came down the stairs and the young lady herself 
came across the hall towards him. There she was, 
slim, dark-clothed form and golden hair and slender 
hand. 

“Oh, you’ve found my box!” she exclaimed in a 
sweet, soft voice. “Oh, good man I Are they alive 
and all right?” 

Jim stood speechless; the last of his powers 
seemed deserting him. His voice died in his throat. 
With both trembling hands he pushed, out the pre¬ 
cious casket into her eager grasp. 

Then all went dark and he fell in a crumpled 
heap on the whiteness of the marble flooring. 
***** 

Bill is now in quod doing seven years for a bur- 
^ glary with violence, but Jim is third gardener at 
Hailstone Hall, has a sunny room all to himself, and 
a whole row of primroses on his window sill. 


THE VENGEANCE OF PASHT 


In the torrid heat of the Egyptian afternoon the 
desert lay outstretched, a silent, shimmering golden 
sea. Little wavelets of sand rose from its surface 
at intervals, curled over and blew away as the scorch¬ 
ing desert wind passed by. Otherwise nothing moved 
nor stirred till the form of a camel outlined itself 
against the blue sky, walking easily and swiftly and 
bearing on its back the slight white clothed figure 
of a girl. She was young and extremely fair, the 
mass of curls pressed up against the shady hat-brim 
was gold as the sunshine, the eyes were bright 
sparkling blue like the sky above, the skin all soft¬ 
ness and bloom. She was humming to herself as she 
rode—she felt so happy, so delightfully alone and 
free. She had slipped away from the noisy clam¬ 
oring crowd of tourists with whom she travelled 
on her little Cook’s ticket which had cost her £25 
and brought her to this ancient land of old and 
sacred gods. 

She had escaped from the hateful attentions of 
one of the men of the party and now with a map 
and a guide book she had started out on the great 
adventure of finding for herself the obscure and 
lonely little temple of the Goddess Pasht. 

From her childhood she had studied Egyptian his¬ 
tory and she knew all about the great Goddess? divine 
116 


THE VENGEANCE OF PASHT 117 


protector of all the feline tribe. Her father had 
been an Egyptologist of some note and books and 
pictures of Egypt had been her playthings from her 
earliest years but what were books and pictures to the 
delights of being here at last and seeing for herself 
the rich and glorious temples that have been the 
wonders of the world for centuries? 

She rode on leisurely, accommodating her supple 
body to the long swinging stride of the camel and the 
sun slanted slowly to the Western sky behind her. 
She was thinking how delightful life would be if 
there were more of this loneliness in it; that horde 
of chattering companions she was with usually day 
and night, how she hated it and that one man who 
pursued her so relentlessly. That wretched man, 
how she hated him. He was positively spoiling the 
whole of her tour. Wherever she went she al¬ 
ways found that he was there. She never seemed 
able to escape him. If their little boat had to cross 
the Nile to reach Thebes, he always managed to 
secure the seat next to hers. If the party were mak¬ 
ing an excursion on donkeys, he always rode his up 
beside hers and once, through pushing up close beside 
her on a steep bank, he had forced her donkey so 
near the edge that it had almost rolled over it. It 
had been so from the very first, this constant pursuit 
of her and she could honestly feel she had given 
him no encouragement. His personal appearance on 
the first day she saw him among the crowd of jolly¬ 
faced tourists had repelled her. The long lanky 
dark hair which was always falling over his pallid 


ii8 THE BEATING HEART 

forehead, the sinister dark eyes, the peculiarly evil 
mouth and above all the large lean sinewy hands had 
filled her with a sense of h,orror and repulsion. 

Even before she had heard what he was, a medical 
student, and been shocked by his callous conversa¬ 
tion, his horrid talk of his cruel experiments on cats. 
Cats! animals that she particularly loved for their 
soft, sinuous movernents, their beautiful eyes and 
their deep silent affections. 

She shuddered as she thought of him and glanced 
involuntarily behind her. But here out in the desert 
there seemed no menace. Only limpid golden light 
on golden sand met her eye, infinite silence and peace 
was all around. 

She consulted the' map; she should be nearing her 
destination now and after a few more minutes she 
descried ahead of her the rising mound of sand that 
marked the site of the half buried temple of Pasht. 
Rather plain in its architecture and not imposing in 
size, it is often passed over by the tourist and the 
sight-seer as unworthy of particular notice, and the 
long camel ride one has to take to find. But now 
with its smooth straight walls glowing gold in the 
magic lights and its dark portal suggesting mysteries 
within, its lonely situation out here away from any 
other tomb or temple away from every sign of life, 
half buried beneath the drifting tide of sand it 
seemed to the girl most appealing, far more inter¬ 
esting visited thus in its grandeur of desolation than 
the larger ones she had seen thronged with loqua¬ 
cious dragomen and gaping visitors. 


THE VENGEANCE OF PASHT 119 


She pulled up the camel and looked around. 
Everywhere about her amber glory of soundless 
space. 

“Khush” she said gently to the camel and the 
great docile beast went down on his knees and let 
her dismount. 

She had to descend three steps and then through 
the great granite doorway she entered the temple. 

There were three small horizontal windows, rect¬ 
angular slits, at the top of the walls near the stone 
roof on which the sand had piled and the whole of 
the interior was full of a soft grey light. In the 
very centre of the small square chamber was the 
great statue of the Goddess about three times the 
girl’s own size. A seated majestic figure in grey 
stone, the body that of a woman, bare breasted 
and with hands resting on its knees, the head and 
face that of an enormous cat with calm fixed eyes 
looking out towards the desert beyond the open 
door. So had it sat gazing in unmoved calm while 
the centuries rolled by and generations of men 
turned into dust which the desert wind swept by the 
temple door. 

Pasht sat there silent and alone in her neglected 
temple. Her worshippers had passed away, the 
flowers and lights and wreaths of former days were 
hers no more, the girls who had danced in her 
honour and flung chains of roses round her feet, 
where were they now with their dusky slender limbs 
and dark laughing eyes ? Perished and gone but she 
in her carven stone sat there still, serene and secure. 


120 


THE BEATING HEART 


The girl on first entering could see nothing but 
after a few minutes when her eyes, accustomed to 
the soft gloom, took indistinctly the huge form of 
the great woman-cat towering over her, a sense of 
awe enfolded her and she dropped into a sitting posi¬ 
tion near its feet, and gazed up reverently into the 
curious feline countenance, carved so long ago by 
some skilled and loving hand. 

“Goddess, I love you,” she said in a whispering 
tone after a minute’s silent musing, “just as much 
as any of your old, old long ago worshippers did, 
and I love all cats all your incarnations. They are 
the dearest darlings in the world and so misunder¬ 
stood. Just because they have not the exuberant 
spirits of the dog, man thinks they can’t feel. But 
deep down in their dark reserved passionate natures, 
they feel intensely and they love. Oh, how they can 
love when one understands them! I am glad they 
were held sacred and worshipped in Egypt! Per¬ 
haps I was one of your temple girls. Goddess, in 
those old, far off times!” 

She sat still on the sand, her hands loosely clasped 
round her knees. She felt so happy to have dis¬ 
covered the temple—and the statue that her father 
had told her of and all by herself, and happy to be 
able to sit still and think for which there was gen¬ 
erally so little time in this tour with the band of 
people always being hurried along from one place 
to another. 

This was an interval of calm and rest and she was 
thoroughly enjoying it. She felt no fear, no sense 


THE VENGEANCE OF PASHT 121 


of loneliness, under the kind grave eyes of the stone 
deity. She felt protected and with some august com¬ 
panion. 

Suddenly in the soft and profound stillness a 
sound struck upon her and thinking the camel had 
become restless, she rose and turned to the door. 
Then drew back with a half uttered exclamation 
and stood close against the colossal knees of the god¬ 
dess with horror stamped on her face. In the door¬ 
way stood the slim erect figure of a young man in a 
light grey suit. Not apparently a very horrifying 
sight but a chill hatred ran all along the girl’s veins 
as she looked at him and her hand grew cold as the 
stone on which it rested. 

He advanced smiling. “This is a treat darling to 
find you here all alone,” he said gaily coming up to 
her. “What’s this old thing here? Why I do be¬ 
lieve its a beastly cat,” and he stared up impudently 
into the stately countenance above them. 

“Oh, hush! please, it’s a statue of the Goddess 
Pasht.” 

The young man looked back at her laughing, 
“Pasht, well who’s she and why’s she got a cat’s 
head?” 

“She was the patron Goddess of cats,” said the 
girl. 

“Oh, was she? Well, she won’t like me then, I’ve 
cut up lots of her proteges, starved them and 
drowned them and doubled them up with tetanus.” 

“Please don’t tell me about it. I don’t want to 


122 


THE BEATING HEART 


hear.” The girl’s lips were white; all her happy 
smiles and colour had fled. 

“Oh they were only ordinary wretched little street 
cats anyway,” rejoined the man lightly. 

“How did you come here?” asked the girl. Her 
eyes were fixed on the stone face above them. Was 
it only her fancy, or that the light was failing? It 
seemed to her the countenance had darkened as if 
with wrath and the calm gaze grown fierce and grim. 

“On a camel; same as you did. Oh, you didn’t 
think I was going over to Thebes did you with the 
rest of the flock, if you weren’t there? Not much. 
I just waited about in the Hotel and after you’d 
gone I found out from the porter whom you’d hired 
the camel from, then I went to him and found out 
where you had headed for. Then I followed you 
but I had to be precious careful you didn’t turn round 
and see me. One can see for such miles in the 
desert.” 

“Why did you come?” the girl’s voice was 
strained and low. Oh, how she hated this man who 
had made her life a burden ever since the beginning 
of the tour. 

The man laughed. 

“What a question! As if you don’t know, you 
little humbug! Why to make love to you of course, 
not to see this old Smash Pash or whatever you said 
her name was.” 

“Well you know I don’t want to listen to you and 
its getting late now. Let us ride back.” She was 
still standing by the knees of the statue. He was 


THE VENGEANCE OF PASHT 123 

between her and the door, she could not move 
towards it without approaching him. 

She glanced round; the greyness of the temple was 
of a darker tint; outside the glowing patch of light 
showed the approach of sunset. 

“Not at all. I have no intention of going back 
yet. You may as well sit down and be sensible. Fve 
come out to ask you again will you marry me?” 

“No, I have told you before I will not.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I don’t love you. I could never love 
anybody who cut up animals alive.” 

“We don’t call it that now, you are so old fash¬ 
ioned, we call it Scientific Research.” 

“It’s the same thing whatever you call it.” 

“Lots of women admire it.” 

“Well marry one of them.” 

“I don’t want to, I want to marry you.” 

“You can never do that.” 

“We shall see. To-morrow morning you will be 
begging and praying me to marry you.” 

The girl went deadly cold all over and the sweat 
broke out on her forehead. He had come a little 
nearer. Through the dark she could see the evil 
face, the horribly eager expression. 

“What do you mean?” she stammered, her throat 
was dry, her limbs trembled. Horror and hatred 
and a nameless fear possessed her. The temple 
seemed growing smaller, its walls contracting, push¬ 
ing him upon her. 

“I should think you’d know. We’re going to make 


124 


THE BEATING HEART 


a night of it here and if you’re alive in the morning 
—well, we’ll see what you say then.” 

There was a great dead silence. Now that she 
realized the extremity of her danger her courage 
seemed to rise to meet it. She thought rapidly: 
Was there any escape, any help anywhere? Was 
anyone likely to come to her rescue? Would she be 
missed, followed? 

“You arranged it all very well,” the man’s voice 
went on in mocking tones as if in answer to her 
thoughts. “You told no one where you were going. 
Only the camel man has the least idea where you are 
and I’ve tipped him well. He won’t tell anyone in 
time!^ 

He was very near her now and suddenly he threw 
both arms round her and drawing her up to him 
kissed her violently on the mouth. At the touch of 
his lips a perfect fury of revolt rose in her and she 
struck out wildly at him with her clenched fists. With 
the strength that the madness of anger gives she 
wrenched herself loose from him and fled behind the 
statue so that the colossal form of the image was 
between her and her tormentor. There she paused 
trembling and gasping. 

The man was now by the knees of the statue. She 
saw his dark face and the black brows contracted into 
a straight savage line as the light from one of the 
slit-like windows above fell on it. He followed her 
but terror lent wings to her feet and she fled away 
before he could reach her circling round the image. 
He followed and dodged and circled also but she 


THE VENGEANCE OF PASHT 125 


was too quick and fleet in her movements for him 
to circumvent. So for a few moments they played 
in a deadly game round the age old Deity. But the 
girl felt her strength failing. The poisons of hatred 
and anger, terror and loathing were pouring into her 
blood, enervating her, taking away her powers. Her 
eyes were darkening, her limbs giving way. 

In another moment she must faint and fall. 

They were on opposite sides now. Across the lap 
of the Goddess she saw the crimson face, the bulging 
blood-shot eyes of the human beast waiting to spring 
on her. The temple was going dark, all was whirl¬ 
ing before her. 

“Save me, Pasht!’’ 

And as her agonized scream rang through the 
temple, she pressed her slender white hands against 
the arms of the statue. 

Was it the pressure of those soft fingers disturb¬ 
ing the balance already shaken by the shifting of the 
sand floor through a thousand years? Or was the 
stone heart of the Goddess turned to flesh and blood 
as man’s heart is so often turned to stone? Who 
shall say? 

Before the murderous beast could move back from 
where he stood beside her lap the huge idol 
reeled and fell over on its side with a sullen thud 
bearing him to the ground beneath its six tons of 
solid granite. The temple shook to its foundation 
and the whole air was filled with a fog of blood 
and sand. One piercing shriek of agony rang through 
it. Then there was silence except for the sound of 


126 


THE BEATING HEART 


the blood thrown on the walls trickling down them 
to the ground. The concussion of the air in that 
small space had thrown the already half fainting 
girl back against the wall. For a moment she could 
see nothing, the stinging sand filling and closing her 
eyes. Then as the particles settled down once more 
to their age old repose her terrified gaze took in 
the form of the huge image at her feet, the scarlet 
wall opposite her, the semi-obliterated mass of 
small human form and clothes. The man’s face was 
crushed deeply into the sand under the colossal 
shoulder of the Goddess but something still moved, 
chaining her fascinated gaze—two large sinewy 
hands scrabble^ still convulsively pulling at the sand. 
Then after a few more minutes these also grew 
motionless. Breathless, terrified, half suffocated 
and dazed the girl still clung to the wall hardly 
realising yet what had happened and if she herself 
were still living and uninjured. Then as the sand 
settled and the air grew clear, calmness returned 
to her and she knew she was safe and free. 

With gentle steps she approached the huge fallen 
form, avoiding the horrid blue hands that looked 
still able to grip and grasp and holding her skirts 
away from all the contamination oozing from under 
the stone and looked down into the face of the 
statue. The light from the doorway slanted on to it 
and seemed to soften it all into smiles and the desert 
wind springing up passed through the temple and out 
at the top slits by the roof with a loud purring sound. 
The girl stooped and pressed her warm red lips on 


THE VENGEANCE OF PASHT 127 


the ancient stone brow in a kiss of gratitude, then 
passed out into the sunset and mounting her camel 
and followed by the other, rode away over the 
golden sand and night settled slowly on the desert 
in a violet dusk enclosing the ancient temple where 
the Goddess Pasht lay purring on her prey. Her 
starry eyed children were avenged. 


\ 


VILLAGE PASSION 


The shapely mass of her body was outlined dark 
against the rosy gold of the evening sky, as she sat 
on the top of the red brick orchard wall, looking 
up and down the country road on which it bordered. 

She was named Apricot Marten and the Christian 
name given her by a fanciful mother could not have 
been more suitably bestowed. She was just like a 
golden glowing apricot in its very best condition 
when it hangs basking in the summer sun. She had 
a soft, clear skin with a warm flush in the velvet 
cheek, great lustrous laughing eyes of a warm golden 
brown, and a wealth of bright waving hair in which 
the sunrays seemed to have got permanently en¬ 
tangled. Her mouth was bright crimson and turned 
up at its smiling corners, and her body was supple 
and gracious in its full rounded contours. Alto¬ 
gether she was an enchanting piece of girlhood just 
merging into womanhood, and many were the sleep¬ 
less nights passed by the young men of Fullingham 
village in thinking about her. 

She was not entirely free from the reputation of a 
flirt, but deep in her heart her choice was made, 
and from it she never swerved however mischiev¬ 
ously she might behave. 

It was John Macpherson the Highlander, the 
lithe, agile, black-haired, hasty-tempered Scot who 
128 


VILLAGE PASSION 


129 


worked on the farm which adjoined her father’s 
cottage and orchard. But she gave this away to no 
one, and many thought she had her eye on Tony 
Morrison, whose father owned the little village shop 
and general store, and, in absence of all competi¬ 
tion, did a good business. Tony served in the store, 
and while rather short and insignificant in physique, 
made up for this by the extreme care he bestowed 
upon his dress and personal appearance. He wore 
neat and becoming grey suits and townish-looking 
hats, and always produced a pleasing impression of 
great cleanliness and smartness. Tony’s heart had 
been given long ago to Bessie Smith in the next vil¬ 
lage, a little quiet mouse of a girl with violet eyes. 
Apricot was much too flamboyant a personage to 
please his quiet taste, but this secret devotion he also 
imparted to no one, and as Apricot was considered 
the belle of his village, it flattered his masculine 
vanity to be supposed one of her accepted admirers. 
By a quiet and modest smile he generally managed 
to encourage the rumours about himself and Apricot 
while ostensibly denying them. All of which made 
the heart of John Macpherson flare up with con¬ 
suming anger against him. 

Thus stood matters in Fullingham village on that 
lovely summer evening when Apricot sat humming 
to herself on the top of the orchard wall. The 
scene was truly idyllic in its beauty. Fullingham is 
one of the prettiest villages in the quietest and most 
remote part of Devonshire, and this evening the 
glory of pink light in the sky was so great it turned 


130 


THE BEATING HEART 


even the white road a rosy colour, and all the hedges 
were full of wild roses and the still warm air heavy 
with balmy scents. 

Apricot thought it beautiful, and looked with 
longing eyes up and down the road. She felt she 
wanted to kiss somebody, to throw her arms round 
somebody’s neck, and who so delightful for this as 
the handsome Highlander, if he would only come! 
They had an appointment at this place and hour. 
She was there, but where was he? There was no 
one to be seen in the road except a small shock¬ 
haired boy gnawing an apple. Then, swinging 
lightly along, came a figure down the road. 

Apricot put her hand to shade her eyes to see, 
but it was not John. She thought at first it was 
Tony, that slight, neat form in grey with the smart 
hat; but no, it was not he. It was a stranger. 

Up went Apricot’s hand to her hair to smoothe 
back a tress. What would he think of her? She 
wondered. Would he look up as he passed? 

The stranger did more than that. When he came 
up to the orchard he stopped and looked up. 

“What are you doing up there?” he asked. His 
voice was gentle and courteous, and the face he 
turned up towards her very pleasant to look at. 

Apricot did not resent his addressing her. 

“What’s that to you?” she called back saucily, 
showing her small white teeth in a gay smile; and 
pulling a great red rose that grew on the wall close 
to her hand, she threw it down full in his face. 


VILLAGE PASSION 


131 

The stranger caught the rose and kissed it, and 
then stuck it in his coat. 

“Come down and have a little walk with me. 
You look lonely up there.” 

“Not so lonely as you look in the road, young 
man.” 

“Oh, I’m lonely enough! That’s why I want 
your company.” 

“Will you catch me?” she said laughing and lean¬ 
ing over. 

“Certainly I will,” he answered, holding out his 
arms. “Come along.” 

She swung her shapely legs and neat feet over the 
side of the wall next him, and then let herself slip 
down it. He caught her fine, well-developed figure 
in his arms, and holding her up tight and close gave 
her a kiss on her bright red lips. 

She slapped his face, but quite gently, and 
struggled away from him, shaking her blue cotton 
gown straight that had been rather rumpled by her 
descend. 

“Now we’ll go for a walk,” said the stranger. 
“Which way?” 

“Oh, we’ll go towards Hawley village. That’s 
very pretty,” she answered. “And if you want the 
train you can get it there. You’re a town gentle¬ 
man, aren’t you?” she added shyly. 

Fullingham village is off the railway line and it 
was not an uncommon thing for strangers to pass 
through the village from Riverside where there was 
a station to Hawley on the other side where they 


132 


THE BEATING HEART 


could again take the train, having walked through 
six miles of the prettiest Devonshire scenery. 

“Oh, that’ll do very well. I didn’t know you had 
a train so near. Yes, I’m finishing my holiday and 
going back to town to-night.” 

They were walking slowly up the road now in the 
gorgeous sunset light. A moon large and pale as a 
thin white paper disc rose in the East before them. 

Apricot had her own ideas in view in going in the 
Hawley direction and shipping the stranger off her 
hands there. She was thoroughly enjoying the new 
sensation of walking and talking with a London 
gentleman, but she was not quite sure how John 
Macpherson would view her little promenade, and 
she was not too anxious to be met or seen by him. 
It was quite true he had not kept their tryst, and in 
her own mind that quite excused her for going off 
with someone else. But then, he and she did not 
always agree about these things, and altogether it 
was best to take the handsome stranger out of her 
own village and over to Hawley in which direction 
the Fullingham rustics did not often walk. 

Laughing and jesting and walking quite near to¬ 
gether the two young figures passed up the sunlit 
road. Some little way ahead of them there was a 
fork, one road winding up an incline and passing 
through a larch plantation on the hill before it 
dipped down to Hawley station, the other a far pret¬ 
tier road following the valley and passing through 
a lovely wood as it worked round to Riverside. 

Apricot and the stranger walked along with 


VILLAGE PASSION 


133 


springing steps, taking the Hawley road. It was 
surely an evening to feel, if ever, the madness of 
Summer in one’s veins. He thought he had never 
seen such a lovely country girl and she, without 
swerving in the least from her allegiance to the fiery 
Macpherson, thought it was the greatest fun in the 
world to be admired by a town gentleman, a real 
London man, with London clothes and all. 

“There’ll be none of this when I’m married to 
John,” she was reflecting inwardly. “Best have what 
fun I can now.” 

Pleated a little by their walk up hill in the warm 
Devonshire air, they entered the feathery larch 
plantation with a feeling of relief. It was full of 
light, shade and music; thrushes and blackbirds, 
robins and chaffinches not yet exhausted by their 
nesting cares were trilling on every side of them. 

“Let’s sit down here,” he suggested as they came 
to a mossy bank where a tiny brooklet tinkled by, 
and Apricot, flushed and lovely, sat down v/illingly 
and let the stranger’s arm come round her waist. 
Her conscience told her it was not quite right, but 
oh! that wood with its rosy mystery of softened 
summer light and the wandering perfumes of roses 
and hot resin and the magic of the birds’ voices, all 
talking of love, what girl would not be swayed by it 
and made a little giddy by the sweet intoxication of 
it all? 

Meantime, Macpherson had gone down to the 
store, his work being over at the farm for that day, 
to buy himself a new tie wherewith to charm Apricot 


134 


THE BEATING HEART 


at the trysting. He was much put out to find there 
only one tie and that green, a colour he thought 
didn’t suit him. Everyone knows the kind of village 
shop it was where everything is sold, but things are 
so seldom what one wants. Gloves are there, but 
only size ten. Boots are there, but only size four. 
Pencils are sold out, but you can have a slate pencil. 
Bootlaces have not come in, but you can have a ball 
of string. Macpherson bought his tie, and as the 
gawky girl who assisted Morrison, was wrapping it 
up in a bit of paper too small for it, he asked: 

“Where’s Tony?” 

“Gorn sweethearting, I ’spects,” answered the 
girl with a grin, “leastways, he went out all dressed 
up in his new soot and hat.” 

Macpherson grunted, paid and left, went home, 
donned the tie, and then, a little late, flustered and 
rather put out, hurried to the appointed orchard 
wall. There was no Apricot—no one to be seen at 
all up or down the wide country road except a small 
boy devouring the core of an apple. Macpherson 
waited with glowering eyes. It was all very well for 
him to be a bit late. He had a man’s work to do, 
but girls should be punctual. 

Several minutes went by, each an hour to the 
waiting man. Then he strode across to the boy on 
the other side. 

“You seen Miss Apricot about here?” he asked. 

The boy looked up stolidly. “I seed her a while 
ago.” 

“Where?” 


VILLAGE PASSION 


135 

“On yon wall,” answered the boy, nodding in that 
direction. 

“Well, where did she go?” 

“Nowhere, till a gent corned along; then there 
wur a lot of huggin’ and kissin’ an’ she went off 
with he.” 

Macpherson’s face was a study as he listened to 
this astounding statement. He stood rooted to the 
spot, and from his six feet glowered down on the 
malicious little imp in the road as if he could kill 
him. The boy knew perfectly well that Macpherson 
was “sweet” on Miss Apricot, and he thoroughly 
enjoyed imparting this information. He would have 
been afraid to make up such a story, but since he had 
witnessed it all and it was perfectly true and this 
great giant had asked him, he was going to have the 
fun of telling him, on the same principle that he 
egged on Farmer Smith’s dog to fight another dog 
and shook the bag when he was carrying ferrets to 
make them attack each other. 

He was a little alarmed when Macpherson’s great 
paw came down heavily on his shoulder. 

“You little rat! What sort of a man was it? 
Tell me that I” 

“I dunno,” said the boy sullenly, trying to shake 
himself free, “a kind of a smart chap in a grey soot 
and hat.” 

“A grey suit and hat!” The light blazed in Mac¬ 
pherson’s dark eyes. He shook the boy by the 
shoulder. 

“Was it Tony Morrison at the store?” 


136 


THE BEATING HEART 


“I dunno,” wailed the boy frightened now by the 
awful look of rage in the man’s face and only anxious 
to get away. “I never go to the store, muvver 
always goes.” 

Another frightful shake that made his teeth rattle. 

“Was it?” 

“I dunno. I never saw ’is face, only ’is back as 
he was a-kissin’ of her. It mout be the store man, or 
it moutn’t.” 

“Little devil!” growled Macpherson, and with a 
final shake sent the boy down on his hands and knees 
in the dust. Then he strode off up the road at a 
tremendous pace, his blood on fire, his mind entirely 
made up. 

It was Tony, of course. He knew that absolutely. 
He was convinced of it. The grey suit and hat, 
the smart appearance—who else in Fullingham had 
that? It was Tony’s own particular property and 
asset. Besides, had he not just heard at the store 
that Tony was gone sweethearting? Of course it 
was all quite clear. Huggin’ and kissin’ his Apricot I 
The thought of her darling velvet cheek that he him¬ 
self so reverently touched, her lovely smiling scarlet 
mouth, came to him and seemed to add boiling oil 
to the raging flame within him. He would do for 
him! He would kill him! He would break his 
back! The cur! The reptile! Who all along had 
been carrying on with his girl and who was so smug 
and so satisfied—always at the store so neat and 
clean, and always so civil-spoken and so quiet! 

He had always rather liked Tony. There had 


VILLAGE PASSION 


137 


been a great friendship between the men only lately 
a little spoiled by the slumbering suspicion in John’s 
mind that Tony might be “after his girl,” but Tony 
had always been good to him personally and he 
always spoke of Apricot to John as Miss Marten, 
which came back bitterly to John now. “I’ll ‘Miss 
Marten’ him when I catch him,” he said between his 
teeth. ^ 

A hideous thing is jealousy, blinding its victim, 
deafening him alike to the voice of conscience and 
the voice of reason hounding him on to the scaffold 
and the grave. 

John Macpherson, good man, great soul, walked 
up the road that evening with red murder in his 
heart. When he came to the cross-roads he stopped 
and hesitated. Which way had they gone? 

He decided they must have taken the road to 
Riverside. It lay before him so attractively beauti¬ 
ful all bathed in golden sheen; the road to Hawley 
was up hill and in shadow. 

Before one reaches Riverside comes the wood, 
and as the Voad passes into it there is a low stile. 
On this stile with his back to the road and all uncon¬ 
scious of the desperate figure of vengeance striding 
along it, sat a figure in grey. It was Tony, blissfully 
happy; full of light-hearted innocent enjoyment 
swinging his legs to the tune he was whistling. He 
was looking back to Riverside and was counting the 
kisses shy little Bessie had given him that day, and 
thinking how sweet she had looked when she prom¬ 
ised to marry him. Now he was on his way home 


138 


THE BEATING HEART 


to Fullingham and just pausing to rest on the stile 
and enjoy the sweet calm and peace of this perfect 
evening which suited so well his happy mood. 

Suddenly as John came along the road he caught 
sight of the grey back rising above the stile and every 
drop of blood in John’s body turned to raging flame. 
His ears caught the gay whistle. Apricot was no¬ 
where to be seen, but that was natural. She would 
be slinking home through the woods by way of 
Riverside and back to her father’s cottage, where she 
would turn up with the innocent look of the cat who 
has stolen the cream. Well, nothing could be better. 
Apricot out of the way he could deal all the more 
swiftly and better with his rival. 

Like a bull at a fence he rushed at the stile, and 
Tony was knocked off and down on the ground, 
pinned under John’s hands at his throat before he 
knew who had approached. 

“You weasel! You little devil! I’ll kill you!” 
John stormed, and lifting the prostrate man by the 
neck dashed him down again with all his force. 
There was a wide stone flag just under ’the stile to 
help matters in the muddy wintertime, and on this 
flag Tony’s head came down with a good bang. 

“What’s up?” he gasped, as well as he could with 
John’s suffocating grip on his neck. “What’s this 
for, Mac?” 

“Huggin’ and kissin’!” ground out John between 
his teeth. “I’ll teach you to come after my girl!” 

“I haven’t! I haven’t!” cried Tony. “Let up, 
Mac, let up! You’re mad.” 


VILLAGE PASSION 


139 


“If I’m mad you’re dead. I’m going to kill you, 
you little beast!” Bang! “Where were you this 
afternoon?” Bang! “Answer me that.” Bang! 

Tony’s lips were going white. His thoughts were 
scattered by the blows on his head. He managed to 
gasp out: “Riverside! I’ve been to Bessie—I 
haven’t seen your girl.” 

“You’re a good liar,” scoffed John. “You were 
seen huggin’ my girl and I’ll see you never do again. 
Now go on with more of your lies.” Bang! Bang! 

But Tony’s lying or speaking at all had come to an 
end. His face went grey; his jaw dropped; his body 
fell limp in the fierce hands which held him. 

John let him slide down and struggled to his feet. 
Instantly his rage fell from him. He was face to 
face with the awful fact—he had killed a man. 

Sane now, calm, his anger utterly spent and gone 
from him, John stood panting there, looking about 
him. He was quite alone in the golden evening; 
everything was exquisitely calm about him, a thrush 
near by was pouring out his song, and the figure, 
a few moments before sitting whistling on the stile, 
was now lying limp and motionless at his feet. 
Those few moments of blind, dark rage had turned 
one man into a corpse, the other into a murderer. 

Murder! It was hanging for that. 

A wild longing to undo what he had done pos¬ 
sessed him. He went down on his knees. 

“Tony!” he called. “What’s the matter with 
you? Tony, wake up!” But the man lay still and 


140 


THE BEATING HEART 


grey before him. He undid his coat and felt his 
heart; there was no movement. 

He passed his trembling arm under his head and 
raised him and put his own face down close to see if 
any breath touched his cheek; but there was none. 
Limp, nerveless, the body lay across the flagstone, 
seeming to ask him, “What will you do with me 
now?” And John, wrapped in that awful horror, 
that awful responsibility of his deed, rose from his 
knees and stood shuddering by the stile. 

Then terror came and seized him. He must con¬ 
ceal his act. He must hide the body. It must never 
be known he had murdered Tony. He might never 
be discovered. If Tony’s body were found later, 
in the wood, what would tie this deed to him, Mac- 
pherson? Tony might have been murdered by a 
tramp in the wood. 

Shivering as if with mortal cold, John stooped 
over the body and dragged it by the shoulders out 
of the path and into the little wood. Parting the 
flowering bushes by the side of the track, he pushed 
into the thick undergrowth and there left the motion¬ 
less form under some wild azaleas. 

Then with the cold, clammy fingers of his crime 
clinging to him, unnerved and shaken, with his heart 
in a black terror, he crept out, a criminal, from the 
shade of the trees and took the sunfilled road again. 

He looked all round the stile, but there was no 
trace of the crime committed there. He brushed the 
white dust of the path from his own clothes. Then 
he stood and listened. 


VILLAGE PASSION 


141 

Not a sound to mar the lovely serenity of the 
golden air. Even the thrush had finished his beauti¬ 
ful song and all was silence. 

***** 

John Macpherson, the same in outward appear¬ 
ance, but within a miserable, broken and craven man, 
entered the village pot-house as the sunset faded 
and the moon grew brighter, and called for a glass 
of beer. 

When he got it he took it to one of the side 
benches, where he sat down away from the rest of 
the company and swallowed it in silence. 

What an awful sense of guilt clung round him; 
but the man deserved it, he kept telling himself. 
Why did he come sneaking round after another 
man’s girl? If it ever came out that he had killed 
him, everyone would allow that he had been sorely 
tried. As he sat there, black and moody, with eyes 
fixed on the sawdust-covered floor, scraps of conver¬ 
sation floated over to him from the bar where the 
men had gathered. He heard nothing at first; then 
a sentence pierced his preoccupied brain. 

“Smart young fellow, wasn’t he? Did you see 
him. Bill?” 

And then Bill’s answer struck dully on his ears: 

“I just seed him go by. I was at the window 
there, an’ I looks up. ‘Why, there’s Tony, ses I’ 
bein’ as ’ow he was all togged up in grey. And I 
calls out, ‘Tony!’ ’cos I wanted them bootlaces he 
promised me. And the feller turns round and I 


142 


THE BEATING HEART 


couldn’t help larfin’, for it warn’t Tony at all, but 
this other chap.” 

There was a general laugh at Bill’s expense. 

“I could have told you Tony was off for the day. 
I met him going to Riverside just after dinner¬ 
time.” 

“An’ what was this young feller doin’ down here, 
this London chap, I mean?” came another question. 

“Oh, just walking through Fullingham, as they 
do, you know, to see the country. He went up by 
Marten’s orchard larst thing I see of him, going to 
Hawley, for sure.” 

The talk drifted on then; but John Macpherson, 
seated near the open door whence the delicious 
balmy air, heavy with the scent of new-mown hay, 
came in and mixed with the beer and baccy of the 
bar, grew cold with horror as he sat and heard. An 
icy conviction gripped him to his inner being strang¬ 
ling him. 

He had killed the wrong man! 

He knew it. He felt sure of it. Tony’s gasping 
words came back to him backed up now so unex¬ 
pectedly by this man at the bar. Tony had been to 
Riverside, he had “gorn sweethearting” but to his 
own legitimate property, his own girl. It was the 
other man in grey who—oh, the horror of it I He’d 
go mad if he sat there another minute. He got onto 
his feet and was just about to cross the threshold 
when another phrase from the little knot of men 
arrested him. They had got onto a prize-fight now. 


VILLAGE PASSION 


H 3 


They were discussing it, as one of the men had seen 
it in a neighboring town. 

“And there he lay, and nothin’ they could do 
seemed to bring him round. I thought he was dead, 
sure. Then another bloke comes along, and whether 
he tips brandy down ’is throat or what he does, I 
don’t know; but up springs my fine fellow as gay as 
you please, and they sets to again.” 

A sudden ray of hope seemed to split the dark¬ 
ness in John’s mind. Suppose—suppose Tony was 
not quite dead? Oh! the wonderful joy of the 
thought. Suppose, like that other man, he could 
come round! Oh, if such a thing might happen 
now and let him out of this cold cell of terror he 
seemed shup up in, he swore within himself he would 
never lift hand against man, woman or child again! 

He had his whiskey-flask in his pocket. Full of a 
new determination he turned and walked to the bar. 

“Six-penn’orth?” asked the barman, as John 
handed him the flask. 

“Fill it right up, man,” said John briefly. And 
when this was done and paid for, he turned and went 
out without a word. 

The barman shook his head. “Macpherson looks 
bad to-night,” he remarked. 

“Bin drinkin’ perhaps; or p’raps that girl’s lead¬ 
ing him a dog’s life. She’s a termagent.” 

Outside John sped up the road, new hope, dim, 
faint uncertain, but still hope glimmering in his 
heart. The full moon was up in a rich purple sky, 
and the night was soft and full of beauty. But 


144 


THE BEATING HEART 


John could see nothing. He felt the hangman’s 
cord about his neck, and for the wrong man—the 
wrong man! 

All seemed quite still, calm as he had left it when 
he reached the wood. The silvery light filtered 
gently through the leaves and fell on his little path, 
showing him the way. 

He stepped aside to the clump of azaleas and 
pushed them back. There lay the still body, just as 
he had left it. It had not stirred. 

With a thumping heart and a prayer on his lips 
John knelt beside it, and raising the head pushed 
the neck of the open flask between the pallid lips. 

There was no movement, but some seemed to go 
down the throat, but he could not be sure. Then 
he got desperate, and getting his handkerchief just 
soaked it in the spirit and rubbed it violently all 
over the man’s face and eyes. 

“Tony man, wake up, I say!’’ he muttered, scrub¬ 
bing his forehead with the fiery spirit. 

At last, oh, God! that was a sigh 1 He was 
breathing! 

John’s hand trembled so that he nearly spilt the 
rest of the flask. 

Tony opened his eyes. 

“Why, what’s this?’’ he uttered faintly. “Where 
am I?’’ 

“Here, drink some more,’’ said John feverishly, 
tipping the flask up and sending a fresh stream down 
Tony’s throat. 


VILLAGE PASSION 


145 


He never touched spirits and it burnt him like 
fire. 

He sat up, John supporting him, and looked 
round. “Is that you, Mac?” he said. “Oh, I re¬ 
member. You nearly bashed me to death under the 
stile. What’s it all about, Mac?” His voice was 
rather weakly; his eyes wandered over John’s 
anxious face and then up to the tracery of boughs 
over them. 

“It was all a mistake, Tony, and I am more sorry 
than I can say. But you’re not hurt much, are you?” 

Tony was sitting up now. His face looked very 
white. His hat, carefully picked up by Macpherson 
and put beside him under the azaleas, was there 
still. His forehead looked damp, and the whiskey- 
soaked locks of hair hung loose over it. He leaned 
his cheek on his hand as he answered; 

“I’ll have you up before the beak for this,” he said 
calmly. Tony was mostly calm. 

“You won’t?” exclaimed John anxiously. 

“It’s six months’ hard for ’sault and battery, and 
it’s two years quod for nianslaughter,” remarked 
Tony. 

John felt a cold sweat break out on him. 

“But I’ve said it was a mistake,” he urged. “I 
thought it was you—” Then he began to stammer 
After all. Apricot was his girl and he was not going 
to give her away. 

“Well, why didn’t you find out before you came 
and knocked me about?” asked Tony in an aggrieved 
voice. “Spoiled my hat, too.” And he took it out 


146 


THE BEATING HEART 


from the azaleas and smoothed its battered brim in 
his hands. 

“Look here, Tony,” said John desperately, “you 
must overlook this. Not a word must come out. 
Say how I can make up to you and I’ll do it.” 

“There’s that fifty pounds you’ve saved up,” re¬ 
marked Tony mildly, still stroking his hat. 

John fell back flabbergasted. Fifty pounds! The 
savings of his whole life! The sacred sum put by 
so that when it grew to a hundred he could set up 
house with Apricot! 

“What do you mean?” he asked with trembling 
lips. 

“It won’t be nice doin’ hard for six months; and 
it’s two years if they bring it in manslaughter.” 

“But I didn’t kill you, man! They can’t call it 
that!” 

“You meant to, though; and you nearly did me 
in. Oh, my head! it do feel bad!” And Tony leant 
against a bush beside him and closed his eyes. 

John seized his flask and made him take another 
gulp. 

“You better take me home,” he said weakly. “I’d 
like to die in the old house.” 

John was desperate. 

“Look here, Tony, if you don’t die and don’t say 
a word you shall have the fifty, I promise you.” 

Tony straightened himself a little. 

“I’ll do my best, Mac,” he said feebly. “How 
soon can I have the money? Soon as I’ve got it I’ll 


VILLAGE PASSION 


147 


say I had a fit; then if I dies you’re safe, anyway; 
and I’ll leave Bessie the fifty.” 

“You’re a cool one,” growled out John. “Fifty 
pounds is a lot of money, Tony.” 

“Well, don’t pay it, don’t pay it, Mac. Maybe 
you’ll find it all right in quod. Two years ain’t long, 
you know.” 

Cold shivers went down John’s spine. Prison for 
one of the Highland Macphersons! And Apricot 
alone and unprotected for two years! She’d never 
wait for him; nor would old Marten ever let him 
have his daughter then. He knew Tony had some 
knowledge of the law. His grandfather had been a 
solicitor in a small way, and on this account many 
were the knotty points referred to Tony by the vil¬ 
lagers. But he hated like anything to lose his cher¬ 
ished fifty, and made another effort. 

“Look here,” he said, “I don’t see what’s to pre¬ 
vent my denying the whole thing. It’s your word 
against mine.” 

Tony shook his head solemnly. “I’d have the 
truth on my side, and the truth’s a fierce thing to be 
up against.” 

John considered. He felt that Tony was right. 
He could never stand up and call God to witness 
that he had not laid a finger on Tony. He felt he’d 
be struck dead or blind if he did. 

“An’ a man’s dying oath is always took in evi¬ 
dence,” added Tony in a mournful tone. 

“How can it be a dyin’ oath if you don’t die?” 

“If I think it’s my dyin’ oath it’s the same thing.” 


148 


THE BEATING HEART 


“’Spose it all comes out, anyway?” 

“Can’t,” said Tony, sitting up and speaking with 
more vigour. “Ff I gets your fifty I’m mum unless 
I feels like dyin’. If it’s that way. I’ll say I have had 
a fit; and if I say it’s a fit, a fit it is.” 

John gave in. “All right,” he said with a long 
sigh. “I’ll get you the money to-night. Now let’s 
get back.” 

He assisted Tony to his feet and put his battered 
hat on his head. 

“Oh, it do ache!” groaned Tony. 

“That’s all the whiskey you’ve drunk,” returned 
John unsympathetically. 

“Maybe it is, and maybe it’s the bashing it’s had,” 
returned Tony. And after that, in silence, the two 
men emerged from the wood onto the moonlit road. 

John walked along in black gloom, pondering al¬ 
ternately on his lost fifty and on Apricot. 

He wondered if she had walked as far as Hawley 
with the stranger; if she had got back home by now; 
if there was the smallest chance of his seeing her 
to-night. He thirsted for the touch of her red lips to 
console him for all he had suffered in emotion that 
day. 

Oddly enough he did not feel angry with her. It 
is a curious point of ethics with the lower classes 
that what is done with a gentleman does not count. 
There is not considered to be anything serious about 
it; it’s only “a bit of a lark”; and while the thought 
of Tony supplanting him had filled him with red 
fury against him, he had nothing at all against the 


VILLAGE PASSION 


149 


gentleman from town who had stolen a kiss from his 
girl in passing through the village. In fact, far 
away in the recesses of his heart there burnt a spark 
of pride that Apricot’s beauty could not be resisted 
by anyone. 

The two men reached the village with hardly a 
word exchanged, Tony occasionally stopping to lean 
on his companion’s arm. 

John left him at the store and went dolefully 
enough to fetch the price of his folly. He brought 
over the small tin box in which he had saved it and 
added to it through so many years, and put it into 
the other’s hands in the back bedroom behind the 
shop. He could not bear to see it counted out by the 
smiling Tony, but with a hoarse mutter of: “It’s all 
there. Mind you keep your word, durn you!” he 
hurried away. 

The night was exquisitely lovely, full of sweet 
scents, and all the whispers of Summer in the air. 
He walked past Marten’s orchard and looked long¬ 
ingly up to the wall where the trees hung their 
branches heavy with fruit over the top. 

But there was no one to be seen, and finally he 
walked away disconsolately back to the farm. 

All the next day he longed to see Apricot; but it 
was not till the evening when all the village was 
dipped in soft violet shadows that he at last met her, 
just as she was coming out of the store. She looked 
so lovely h,is heart rose in a great bound, and he 
threw his arm around her and pressed his lips into 
the side of her creamy neck. 


150 


THE BEATING HEART 


“What you been to the store for?” he asked 
jealously. 

“Only for a bit of ribbon; but I stopped to talk 
to Tony. Oh, John! Think! He’s going to marry 
Bessie Smith in a month, and he’s got fifty pounds 
to start housekeeping! Some folks do save wonder¬ 
ful, don’t they?” 

“Yes, and some has things given ’em,” said John 
savagely. “But we’ll be getting married, too. What 
would you say if I put the banns up to-morrow?” 

Apricot lifted two soft arms and put them about 
his neck. They were sheltered by an old oak that 
grew near the store, and there was no one to see. 
Her upturned face and glowing eyes looked very 
fair and sweet in the dusk. 

She loved her John and meant to marry him, and 
no one else in this world, but walks and talks like 
yesterday’s with the stranger were very great fun 
and she was afraid they might be few and far when 
she was Mrs. Macpherson. Her scarlet mouth 
closed on John’s as she murmured back: 

“I think I’d say, John dear, don’t be so hasty!” 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 
Chapter i 

“Here, Jenkins, take this animal!” And the body 
of the dog from which one foreleg had been cut away 
was thrown into the arms of the new laboratory at¬ 
tendant. 

The dog was screaming wildly and some of its 
blood splashed upon Jenkin’s white smock frock and 
some into his no less white face. The great scientist 
Sir Charles Smith-Brown Bart. Dsc. F.R.C.S. etc., 
etc., was at work in his laboratory and his new at¬ 
tendant was assisting him. 

It was Sunday morning and the Great Man was 
rather afraid he might be made late for church by 
the bungling slowness of his subordinate. 

“Throw him into the trough, man, don’t stand 
there staring and clamp down his paws so that he 
can’t move, the three he’s got left anyway,” he 
added with a little chuckle. Sir Charles was always 
cheerful and pleasant at his work. Jenkins turned, 
lowered the dog into the trough on his back and tak¬ 
ing each leg fastened it into the iron clamp provided 
on each side. The dog was screaming in agony and 
Jenkins’ fingers trembled as he did the clamps and 
turned his head away that he might not see the be¬ 
seeching terror in the animal’s eyes. It did not seem 
right somehow. He had fed the little spaniel last 
night and thought what a jolly little beast it was, 
151 


152 


THE BEATING HEART 


frisking round him, and caressing him with its soft 
nose and tongue. This Sunday morning’s work did 
not seem right to him, but then he was a new hand, 
only having been engaged last night and having had 
his duties described to him as “the care of animals.’’ 

“Now then have you got him fixed?’’ asked the 
great man, coming up behind him, with a keen look¬ 
ing knife in his hand. With this he pointed to the 
dog’s head. 

“Bind his jaws and clamp the head, that’s right. 
Now my friend—’’ the great man leant over the 
trough in which the dog lay rigid, helpless, extended 
on its back, its legs clamped to the sides of the 
trough, wide apart. Jenkins turned away and stared 
stolidly at the piece of bright blue sky that appeared 
above the frosted panes of the lower part of the 
window. 

The dog unable to scream with, its bound jaws 
could still moan and a groaning moan of direct agony 
came to Jenkins’ ears as the great man bent over 
the trough. 

When he looked round he saw there was a great 
gash all down the chest and stomach, laying bare the 
inside, and in the open cavity the scientist was fum¬ 
bling with both hands. 

“There now that’ll do for the present,’’ he said 
cheerily as he withdrew them, covered with blood, 
and wiped them briskly on a towel, “I shall have to 
be off to church now or I shall be late.’’ 

“And what about the dog. Sir?” 

“Oh, I’ll leave him like that. I always do. Let 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 153 


’em cool off a bit you know,” again the pleasant 
laugh. “Then I’ll have at him again after lunch.” 

He was taking off his white smock in which he 
worked and revealed himself well dressed under¬ 
neath. He walked to the wash handstand with its 
fine brass taps and washed his hands carefully. Then 
he went into the hall outside where his frock-coat 
and tall hat were hanging. Jenkins followed him 
eyeing him uneasily. 

“Of course, Sir,” he began rather hesitatingly, 
“I’m new to this kind of work and p’raps I don’t 
understand it, but isn’t it a bit cruel?” 

The great man had slipped on his fine well made 
coat over his large comfortable self and was just 
settling above his eyebrows his very polished new 
silk hat. He looked back pleasantly at the nervous, 
puckered face of his subordinate. 

“My dear Jenkins you decidedly are new to it, 
very: but I trust you will improve in time.” He took 
off his pince-nez and held them lightly in one hand, 
as he was wont to do when addressing a class. “But 
I don’t like these signs of squeamishness. Now I’ll 
just ask you a few questions. You don’t know any¬ 
thing about Scientific Research do you?” 

“No, Sir,” returned Jenkins humbly. 

“Well, then,” pursued his employer genially, 
“you must remember Scientific Research is a very 
noble work and that’s what I am doing here, a very 
noble work,” he repeated, “read the daily papers, 
they are always saying so.” Here he waved his 
pince-nez airily and smiled. 


THE BEATING HEART 


154 

Jenkins was not an adept at analysing sarcasm but 
as he looked at the smiling doctor and heard his 
pleasant tones, he had a vague idea that the big man 
was “making game of him.” 

“Then another thing is its all for the benefit of 
humanity. Now remember that, Jenkins, because 
it’s a useful phrase, the benefit of humanity. I am 
working for the benefit of humanity. You must get 
that well in your head. All you saw this morning, 
all you wilF see here while you are with me is all 
for the benefit of humanity, see?” 

Jenkins feeling himself confused and baffled by 
the smiling eyes and suave tones, tried to keep hold 
of his point. 

“Still it is cruel, isn’t it. Sir?” he mumbled. 

“Cruel?” repeated the Doctor with a shade of 
impatience. “Certainly not. Supposing it were 
cruel what an uproar there would be! You know 
what a lot of churches there are, all full of God¬ 
fearing clergymen, good holy men. Would they 
allow it if it were cruel? Of course not. They 
would denounce it in their sermons but they never 
say a word against it. They uphold it. To-day for 
instance all the London churches are full of these 
good men talking themselves hoarse, telling us all 
what we must not do, but you won’t find one saying 
we must not pursue our researches.” 

“P’raps they don’t know what you are a doin’ 
of,” blurted out Jenkins and then paused alarmed at 
what his employer would think of his boldness, but 
Sir Charles only laughed gently. 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 155 


“Oh, yes, they do,” he said. “We tell them 
often enough in our books and our medical papers. 
But they see the aim, my dear Jenkins, unlike you 
I am afraid. They see how noble, how important 
our work is. They see how important, how im¬ 
mensely valuable, how necessary it is, in fact, to 
humanity, to know that monkeys can have measles!” 
he broke off laughing and Jenkins felt again the big 
man was making fun of him. Sir Charles did not 
seem to mind now being late for church. He was 
amused at the poor simple ignorant fellow before 
him and he liked the feeling that he could confuse 
him with his big words and twist him round his 
finger. 

Jenkins stood blinking for a moment in silence. 
The little spaniel’s agonised moaning came from the 
room behind him and filled his ears making a curious 
undertone to the light banter of the man before him. 
Sir Charles was a great believer in propaganda and 
never let go an opportunity of sowing the good seed. 
He was a little afraid that sooner or later an in¬ 
furiated populace might turn against him and his 
colleagues and put a stop to those practices for 
which now they so meekly and conveniently paid: so 
seeing Jenkins still appeared somewhat obdurate he 
continued more seriously. 

“Just think a minute. There’s the whole country! 
England! You love England, don’t you, Jenkins? 
Fought for it, eh?” 

“Yes, Sir, I do,” replied Jenkins fervently. His 
whole face lighted up. 


156 


THE BEATING HEART 


“Well, now England’s in the forefront of all 
humanitarian projects. Won’t have bull fights, 
stopped cock fights, sends men to prison for throw¬ 
ing a cat out of a window, would England allow 
this work of ours to go on, if it were cruel? No 
she would stop it. Would she tax her people to give 
us little gifts of 500,000 pounds for Research if it 
were cruel? Certainly not. Are you a taxpayer, 
Jenkins?” 

“I must be. Sir. We’re all taxed.” 

“Just so. Then here in the laboratory you’ll have 
the satisfaction of seeing how your money is spent 
for you. Money, Jenkins, it takes money, the noble 
work. Sixty thousand animals more or less go 
through the laboratories every year in England. 
Expensive ones too, some of them: it takes money, 
your money, see?” Here the doctor gave his victim 
a playful little dig in the side. “Now I really must 
run off. Don’t you bother your head about these 
things. Just remember what I say that England’s 
a splendidly humane country and couldn’t allow any¬ 
thing brutal to be done and don’t forget too how 
awfully important it is to know that monkeys have 
measles!” 

Before his confused listener could make any re¬ 
mark the doctor had walked down the passage, 
passed through the door and banged it behind him. 

Sir Charles walked down the road and across the 
straggling bit of waste ground that surrounded his 
laboratory, with a pleased expression on his face. 
One of his favorite experiments was to batter a dog 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 157 


to death slowly with repeated blows, making notes 
during the operation, of the time necessary to pro¬ 
duce insensibility and the further time to produce 
actual extinction. It was always an interesting ex¬ 
periment to his highly scientific mind and he felt in 
some degree as if he had been practicing in the same 
way on Jenkins’ mind. He thought with a smile it 
would not take long in his laboratory to batter to 
death all Jenkins’ funny little ideas about cruelty. 

Jenkins, left standing in the hall, remained there 
as if transfixed. He felt as if the whole thing must 
be some horrible nightmare and that he would wake 
up in a minute in his country cottage with the sound 
of clucking hens outside, instead of that awful moan¬ 
ing from the room behind him. 

What sort of hell was this that he had dropped 
into? 

You see Jenkins lacked a scientific education which 
enables a man to see that black is really white and 
so on. Jenkins was only just an average ordinary 
man so he must be excused if Sir Charles’ most 
beautifully kept and perfectly appointed laboratory 
with all the latest scientific appliances for giving 
monkeys measles and kindred noble work, appeared 
to him a hell. 

How had he got into it? 

Seeing by chance that scrap of paper and the ad¬ 
vertisement that a man was wanted to take charge 
of animals, he had applied for the place, because he 
was fond of animals, and got it. 

He had arrived last night and been shown his 


158 


THE BEATING HEART 


quarters. He had also been shown a room with four 
healthy happy dogs in it in kennels round the walls. 
He had been told to feed them and keep them clean 
which work he had joyfully accepted. The dogs 
had jumped round him in delight recognizing a 
friend and he had spent most of his evening with 
them, cleaning out the kennels which seemed to be 
old ones that had been used for many occupants be¬ 
fore these four had been put into them. His work 
done he had passed through a passage with closed 
doors on all sides of him and up the long flight of 
stairs at the end of it, to his own two rooms, on an 
upper floor. These seemed cosy enough and he had 
slept well. In the early morning he had been 
roused by the unearthly screaming of a dog and 
fearing some accident had happened to one of his 
charges, he bolted down to the room where he had 
left them overnight. 

Finding only three scared looking animals there, 
he had followed the terrible scream down the pas¬ 
sage, opened the door that faced him and come 
straight in on the scene of one of the doctor’s scien¬ 
tific operations. Jenkins being unscientific failed to 
see any trace of beauty and nobleness in the work 
before him. He only saw a perspiring man in a blood 
stained smock holding a dog who was shrieking like 
a human person in the extreme of pain and terror. 
He understood nothing, he vaguely thought there 
must be some accident and his help was needed. 

He rushed forward. “Oh, Sir—” 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 159 


The scientist looked up. His face was working, 
his eye glaring. 

“Damn you, you fool, what do you come here 
for when I’m at work? Get out. Get out!” he 
repeated as Jenkins did not stir. “And never come 
here unless I ring for you.” 

Jenkins turned on shaking legs and got out of the 
room somehow, shutting the door tightly behind 
him. Then he walked down the passage to the room 
where the live dogs were, entered and shut that door 
too and stood with his back against it facing his 
charges. Yesterday they had jumped up to him. 
Now they stood still, looking at him askance. Their 
ears pricked listening to those frightful screams. 
Then he went into the middle of the room and sat 
down on a wooden chair and buried his face in his 
hands with a groan. He couldn’t yet make much head 
or tail of it all but one thing was certain. The 
man in the other room was cutting up a dog alive. 
A dog who had been well and happy last night. It 
had been taken from among these out of this room 
and by inference these others were awaiting the same 
fate. And they knew it: he stretched out his hands 
to them and after a time they came up to him; not 
as last night capering and joyous, but cowering and 
whimpering, sidling up to him pleading for a pro¬ 
tection they felt by instinct he could not give. He 
had put his arms round them and so they sat grouped 
together the man and the terrified dogs listening to 
those horrible cries. He did not know how long he 
sat there but after a time a church bell clanged out 


i6o 


THE BEATING HEART 


a few harsh strokes and after that the doctor’s bell 
had sounded summoning him to his duties. Now the 
great man had departed and he was left in the hall¬ 
way to think over his first lesson in applied Science. 

Jenkins was not an educated man, but he had a 
good clear mind capable of adjusting itself to new 
situations. He was, besides, what we all understand 
by a good man. He had those simple sincere rules 
of conduct that make the useful citizen. He had his 
own very definite ideas of right and wrong and lived 
up to them. He thought it was right to pay your 
way, to help your neighbour whenever possible, to 
work hard and mind your own business. He thought 
it wrong to lie, steal or murder, to cheat or injure 
another in any way, or to abuse the helpless and the 
weak. That was his simple code and it had served 
him very well the 38 years of his hardworking life. 
He saw now chance had flung him into a place where 
what seemed to him scandalous infamies were car¬ 
ried on and his first impulse was to flee from it, as 
one would from any plague spot: make a clean bolt 
of it and forget that such a place existed. But he 
checked the impulse as cowardly. No, here he was 
suddenly up against something he did not in the least 
understand. It was his duty to try to master it and 
see what it all meant. He perceived very clearly 
that however gross the evil existing here it was one 
legally protected and upheld. He remembered he 
had once called in a policeman to stop a man beating 
a dog: nothing of that sort would avail here, that 
was evident. The doctor was quite confident and 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL i6i 


easy in his mind apparently and while the exterior of 
the place looked squalid and desolate situated in its 
ragged waste land, the interior was fitted up with 
every comfort and even luxury. Electric lights and 
lamps and telephones were in every room he had 
seen. Beyond the outlying position, there seemed no 
special secrecy or concealment about the place: No: 
somehow or other, he could not think how, but 
somehow this man was allowed to do what he was 
doing. Allowed as he had said, by the country, by 
the laws, by the church, by his fellows, to do these 
atrocities. His blood boiled within him. Again 
came the temptation to bolt but the thought of the 
animals held him. His fighting spirit was up but 
he could do nothing until he knew more about what 
sort of a hell he was in. He must explore. He 
walked down the softly carpeted hallway away from 
the door, towards the staircase end and opening the 
first door he came to at the side entered the apart¬ 
ment. It was long and narrow. No carpet here: 
on the floor only bare tessellated black and white 
tiles. There were windows high up in the walls: 
below these ranged against each side of the room 
were iron cages. The light fell coldly from above 
and there was a faint foul odour in the air that be¬ 
lied the appearance of aggressive brightness and 
cleanliness of the whole place. There was a row 
of iron cages on each side all down the long room 
and from these rose a continuous low moaning sound 
which seemed to chill his blood. He looked at the 
cages: each one was occupied by a mutilated or dis- 


i 62 


THE BEATING HEART 


eased animal: most of them turning, swaying and 
moaning in direst agony in their cramped quarters: 
others crouching motionless with staring eyes, frozen, 
images of despair. Jenkins turned to the first cage 
on his right. It contained a retriever blinded in 
both eyes from the sockets of which oozed blood 
and matter. He was sitting on his haunches on the 
bare iron floor of his cage in which he could just 
turn round, that was all: the bars at the top almost 
touched his head. 

Jenkins stopped and spoke gently to him. The 
dog raised his ears a little at the unaccustomed sound 
and threw up his great gentle glossy head with the 
most piteous long drawn howl that Jenkins had ever 
heard. Its accent of unutterable woe was such that 
no human voice could achieve. It said as plainly as 
words, “Oh, let me out of my prison house, let me 
die and escape.” 

Jenkins eyes filled. He spoke again and put his 
hand through the bars and stroked the dog’s shoul¬ 
der and the sightless face turned towards his hand 
and the dog’s hot nose pushed into it with another 
long drawn pleading howl. 

Jenkin’s looked at the little white enamelled tablet 
beneath the cage and read: 

“March ist—Eyes removed.” The date was a 
fortnight back! With a sickening feeling half be¬ 
numbing him, Jenkins passed to the next cage. Here 
was a ghastly creature that once had been a dog, 
staring with glaring eyes through the bars. It took 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 163 


no notice. It’s agony appeared to b.e so appalling 
that it was mute and rigid with it. 

Jenkins stooped and read: 

“Tumour (artificial) on brain. Experiment com¬ 
menced February 15.” The next cage held a small 
spaniel puppy with a hugely bloated body that was 
twisting and writhing in every conceivable position. 
It’s tongue was hanging out, foam was pouring from 
its mouth, its eyes bulging from its head, it gave 
short scream of agony at intervals and threw itself 
against the bars of its cage. 

Jenkins felt it was not mad. Out of the large pro¬ 
truding brown eyes looked not insanity: only terror 
and wonder at its own awful suffering. 

Jenkins read on the cage: 

“Virus introduced into stomach.” There was no 
date. 

In the next cage the occupant lay at the point 
of death. It was a small dog: the floor of its cage 
was one pool of blood. Where one of its ears 
should have been gaped a huge hole from which 
blood was still running. Its head had been appar¬ 
ently bandaged. Its paws evidently tied together 
but in its madness of pain it had torn away its bonds. 
Now it lay still on its side. Its mouth open gasping, 
its eyes staring, too weak to move or cry. Dying at 
last. 

Jenkins read: 

“Ear removed. New ear grafted. February 
1st.” 

A month and a half it had been there! 


164 


THE BEATING HEART 


Jenkins crept on down the middle path between 
the row: feeling weak and cold as he went. Each 
cage seemed to him more horrible than the last. Of 
some the contents are indescribable. Beneath some 
ran the legend—“Starving Experiments.” And in 
these the dogs lay rough-haired, motionless, their 
bones almost through their skin, their eyes glazed 
and the dates ranged from January. 

After the dog cages came cats, cats and kittens in 
all stages of mutilation with their small red tongues 
showing in their gasping mouths that let out faint 
little cries for mercy. After these, monkeys and here 
underneath Jenkins read: 

Measles induced at various early dates. 

He paused here looking at the suffering creatures, 
shivering and crouching on the bare zinc floors of 
their cells and his face grew strangely dark as he 
recalled the scientist’s smiling words: “It’s so bene¬ 
ficial to humanity to know that monkeys can have 
measles!” 

His feet crept on again. He felt he could hardly 
move them but he determined to see it all. Other 
monkeys had suffered such frightful injuries he could 
hardly recognize what they were. Their wizened 
anguished little faces were pressed against the bars. 
They clung there whining and chattering. Some with¬ 
out eyes, some without ears, some with huge lumps 
in their throats that they continually pulled at with 
trembling paws. Then the cages ended. He had 
come to the end of the row and he saw in front of 
him a round zinc cylinder-shaped receptacle, just like 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 165 


in appearance the ash barrels seen in back yards. 
He noticed, however, this had perforated holes in 
the lid. He lifted this off and down at the bottom 
of the barrel lay a collie dog. 

He called to it and it lifted its head apathetically 
and gazed up with dull eyes. It was very, very 
emaciated: just its coat seemed covering its skeleton. 
Jenkins put down both his arms into the barrel and 
very gently lifted the dog out bodily and set it on 
the ground. It lay just where he set it, crumpled 
up. Then he raised it and spoke to it. The dog 
apparently tried to respond and moved but as it got 
on its feet it turned and turned and turned in an 
endless awful circle. It could not do otherwise. Its 
head bent down at a queer angle, its legs quivering, 
its tail and ears hanging, its eyes lifeless, its bones 
sticking in places through its rough hair, it turned 
and turned on the same small spot of ground till it 
sank exhausted. 

Jenkins read: 

“Portion of brain removed. Interesting circular 
movement induced.” And the date was two years 
before the present time. 

Jenkins straightened himself, the distorted crea¬ 
ture crouching, silent at his feet. 

“And this is England!'' he said half aloud. 

Impossible to cure, to help, to alleviate any of 
this suffering. Impossible to bestow the last boon 
of death on these sad helpless beings. For if he 
freed any of these, new ones would be put in their 
place. 


i66 


THE BEATING HEART 


With his heart heaving, and beating in a tumult 
of fury, he bent and very tenderly lifted the skeleton 
collie in his arms, held it for a moment against him 
and spoke to it gently. Then lowered it back into 
its awful prison house and replaced the lid. 

Then shivering as if with mortal cold he dragged 
himself on a few paces to the end of the room where 
there was a small gas fire burning and an arm chair 
drawn up by it. He sank into this and put his hands 
to the fire. This was the doctor’s end of the apart¬ 
ment. A screen shut it off from the long line of 
cages. A square of warm carpet covered the bare 
tiles on the floor. A small table with some paper 
and note books and a shaded lamp stood in front of 
the fire. Jenkins sat in the doctor’s chair listening 
to the moaning of unspeakable pain that filled all the 
air, low and desolate and hopeless, and shuddered. 

When the feeling of physical illness had worn off 
a little, he rose to his feet and retraced his steps down 
the long avenue of cages. He could not bear to look 
at them again but kept his gaze resolutely in front 
of him. He knew he could do nothing to help the 
hapless tortured inmates. His duties were to clean 
out the cages and to feed and water and wait upon 
the healthy animals. He was not allowed to inter¬ 
fere with the animals under experiment. If he over¬ 
stepped his limit by the very least he saw he would 
be thrown out at once and he was bent upon staying. 
He felt quite clearly he was face to face with some 
momentous evil that was vast and far-reaching and 
of which he could not read the meaning. He could 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 167 

not grapple with it for he did not fully yet under¬ 
stand what it was but he would be patient, he would 
be calm, he would be self-controlled, he would watch 
and study and wait and then perhaps he could do 
something. But infinite caution would be necessary: 
no rash step, no giving way to raging impulses of 
anger and indignation would serve him here nor help 
those tortured prisoners. “Who sups with the devil 
must have a long spoon” and he felt he was now the 
guest of the devil, indeed. 

He got out of the apartment at last and closed 
the door after him. He went down the hallway and 
listened at the small laboratory door behind which 
he knew the dog was lying clamped in the trough. 
The moaning had ceased. There was no sound now. 
Jenkins crept on up the stairs to his own top floor 
rooms. Before commencing the flight he first no¬ 
ticed another door on his left which he had not 
opened. He read on it in passing on a small plate. 
Lethal Chamber. He dragged himself up the stairs 
and finally reached his own little rooms at the top: 
with which he had been so pleased the night before. 
Only the night before and it seemed he had lived 
through an age of misery since then. He entered his 
own little sitting room, bolted the door after him 
and then sat down at the table, his head in his hands, 
a broken man. His beliefs, faiths, ideals, were all 
shattered and fell from him leaving him naked and 
alone. 

This was England; These things were done in 
England, allowed, approved of, and he had loved 


i68 


THE BEATING HEART 


England, believed in it, fought for it. Did he love 
it now? No. Would he fight for it and offer his 
life again for it? No. He had believed in God. 
He had loved him. Not all the war and the suffer¬ 
ing and the horror of it had shaken his belief in 
Elim. Did he believe in Him now? Love Him? 
No. There could be no loving, good, all-powerful 
being who could look down on that laboratory and 
that man who worked there and not shrivel them 
both to nothing. A God there might be, but if these 
things pleased Him then He must be evil. If they 
did not please Him He must be as powerless as 
Jenkins himself to stop them. 

Perhaps it was that. Perhaps there was a spirit 
of good but perhaps it could not work alone, perhaps 
it needed human co-operation. This was a new 
thought to Jenkins and it give a little light to the 
broken and dejected man. 

Chapter 2 

Day after day went slowly by and Jenkins toiled 
along the painful road of life into which he had been 
so suddenly brought, bearing his burden of grief and 
pain and learning, learning all the time. Every 
hour he saw further into and through the mist of 
horror that surrounded him. He learnt greedily. 
He felt it was vitally necessary to learn everything 
about this terrible wrong that he saw being commit¬ 
ted, if he wished in any way to remedy it. To fight 
a thing successfully you must know what it is: you 
must know what you are fighting. 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 169 


He saw many volumes on the doctor’s book¬ 
shelves and asked permission to read them which was 
genially accorded him. 

“You’ll find things to stagger you in them,” Sir 
Charles said pleasantly, “and lots of hard words. 
I don’t think you’ll get very far with them.” But 
Jenkins did get much farther than the doctor 
thought. He found the books were mostly volumes 
written by scientific men describing their own work, 
records of experiments they had made on living ani¬ 
mals set out in full by themselves. And in spite of 
the stupid jargon of words surrounding them and the 
heavy language Jenkins saw that two things stood 
out very plainly, one, the hideous suffering of the 
animals thus used, the other the absolute uselessness 
and senselessness of the experiments as far as re¬ 
garded Humanity. They were very enlightening 
books and so Jenkins found them. Then there was 
a big scrap book compiled by the doctor himself, 
that led Jenkins far along the road of understanding. 
This book contained newspaper cuttings of all 
descriptions bearing in any way on medical life and 
work. 

Reports of coroners’ inquests especially those 
where the conduct of a doctor or nurse had been 
called in question and where invariably they had been 
triumphantly cleared by the coroner (usually himself 
a doctor) and votes of sympathy extended to them. 
These passages had been underscored with a red 
pencil and often a note of exclamation added to 
them, by the old cynic who had pasted them in. 


THE BEATING HEART 


170 

There were many announcements of wonderful cures 
and these were starred by a blue pencil and many 
pages further on in cuttings of a later date Jenkins 
would find these “cures” contradicted and dismissed 
as worthless hoaxes and a blue star was put against 
these also. Then there were long panegyrics on 
medical science in general and underneath these were 
mostly pencilled notes by the doctor, “Written by 
Smith,” “Good old Ted,” “Very good Charlie,” 
“That’s the stuff to give ’em,” and so on. Then 
there were pictures of Royalty opening hospital 
wards: Royalty going to balls in aid of hospitals, 
etc., and side by side with these, accounts of patients 
who had jumped from hospital windows: patients 
who had died on the operating table, patients who 
having lost their limbs or their sight by the mistreat¬ 
ment in hospitals went back to their garrets to hang 
themselves or gas themselves to death. Sometimes 
these columns were marked by exclamation marks, 
some times the juxtaposition was left to speak for 
itself. Jenkins could just imagine the face of the 
doctor with his tongue in his cheek, as he glued the 
cuttings in. 

Jenkins spent many hours hanging fascinated over 
this volume. 

From the vivisectors’ own books he learnt what 
vivisection really was, from the reports in the papers 
he learnt what the public thought it was and how 
they were assiduously taught by the press to regard 
it and medical science generally. 

Then there were other means of self education. 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 171 

one of the best of which though the most painful 
was listening to the doctor’s conversation and that of 
his friends on those evenings when the great man 
had some friends or some young students in to visit 
him. Jenkins would be called upon to wait on them 
at a light supper with heavy drinks which they took 
in the doctor’s study. 

Jenkins as has been said was not a scientific per¬ 
son, he was simply a man of common sense and the 
way those scientific men talked, the utter brutality 
and callousness of their jokes, their stories, their 
whole view of the sufferings of humanity, the con¬ 
fessions they made or rather perhaps one should say 
the boasts, of how they had acted in their hospital 
wards, made his blood run cold. 

One thing he saw, emerged very clearly and 
restored somewhat to his mind the belief in eternal 
Justice. He saw that this Scientific Research, so 
unutterably wicked and cruel to the animals, was at 
the same time proving an unspeakable curse to hu* 
manity. 

As he heard the talk of reckless experiments on 
patients unfiecessary operations, over-doses of X-ray 
that burnt human insides out, and the joking and 
laughter over human agony, he recognized that Hu¬ 
manity was being justly punished and that the men, 
degraded by horrible experiments on animals were 
totally unfitted to have the care of sick and helpless 
men and women. 

One night climbing to his room after attendance 
at one of these suppers and listening to the revolting 


172 


THE BEATING HEART 


talk, he went to bed, white and dizzy and shaking. 
In the darkness and stillness a question seemed to 
form itself within him and he examined it carefully 
bringing all the knowledge he had gained to bear 
upon it. 

Ought he to kill this man? 

Murder! That would be murder: a horrible idea, 
a horrible thought, a horrible word to the well- 
balanced, civilized mind; and to Jenkins, sober and 
straight-living, the typical good citizen without a 
trace of criminality in his disposition it was appall¬ 
ing. 

Murder! No! On no account must one murder. 
It was an essentially wrong, unpardonable act. But 
would it be murder? he asked himself in his clear, 
hard-thinking though un-educated mind. Would it 
not be justifiable homicide? Let him consider. He 
must consider this question from all points. Here 
he was on the verge of a decision to commit an act 
forbidden by the law of his country, regarded with 
detestation by his fellows and condemned by religion. 
He would take the point of law first. The law 
allowed justifiable homicide. If that were the ver¬ 
dict, the accused was acquitted with honour. 

On what grounds was that verdict given when 
one man killed another? First, self-defence. If 
the doctor attacked him and he feared his own life 
was in danger, he might kill the doctor with im¬ 
punity. His own life. He might kill the doctor to 
save his own life. 

Then why not to save something he valued much 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 173 


more highly? To save from agonising suffering 
those thousand of helpless innocent loving animals 
that the doctor would torture during his evil life? 
Jenkins^ life, what was that? Like all brave natures 
he had hardly a thought for it. A run-away horse, 
a woman in a canal, a child on a railway track, 
any of these might call for and receive its sacrifice 
at any time. Certainly to save even that one line 
of animals in the laboratory, slowly perishing in their 
long drawn out anguish he would have laid down his 
life, had that been able to help matters. 

Therefore, if the law allowed him to murder to 
save his own life, why should it not allow him to 
murder to save something he valued infinitely more? 
Jenkins revolved this anxiously and slowly in his se¬ 
date mind till he came to the conclusion that the law 
should permit him this choice. 

Then he took up another point: the law would 
certainly call it justifiable homicide if he saw the 
doctor murdering a man, woman or child, any human 
being, even an imbecile, and killed him in defence of 
any of those. Then why should he not kill him to 
save those thousands of poor patients that the doc¬ 
tor would certainly murder if allowed to live out 
his evil life to its natural close ? Only that evening 
he had heard him saying to a student that he had 
performed a certain operation three thousand times 
and it had never done any good: only killed or 
crippled. Jenkins shuddered as he thought of the 
mutilated victims dragging out their ruined lives; 
women who had come to the doctor full of hope and 


174 


THE BEATING HEART 


faith and had been sent away according to his own 
statement, shattered wrecks. But what could they 
expect? How could they come to a man for sym¬ 
pathy or expect him to be moved or restrained by 
any decent feeling when he spent his whole life 
wallowing in the most frightful mutilation of ani¬ 
mals? 

Jenkins marvelled at their folly. 

But he must get back to his point as to the law. 
The law would allow him to kill the doctor if he 
were murdering one woman, then why not when he 
was murdering thousands? Again, there was that 
paragraph in a daily paper stating that a certain 
serum had been “successfully tried on 300 children.” 
What about all the children on whom it had been 
unsuccessfully “tried”? 

Jenkins seemed for a moment to see round him a 
plain covered with the small graves of children, 
done to death by the modern Moloch—Science. 
He would save the lives of many human victims 
as well as the animal victims if he extinguished this 
one evil existence. 

Since Jenkins had come to the laboratory he had 
not seen one single useful experiment made, one 
single operation that might be excused by some 
people on the ground of its utility. He had seen 
cats filled with water till they burst, of what good 
is that to humanity? He had seen dogs distorted 
by rickets, and dogs put into boxes which were 
gradually heated while the doctor watched the 
animals inside through a glass window panting and 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 175 


writhing without water or air. He had seen the 
dogs dragged out in a desperate condition and ex¬ 
pire within half an hour. How was humanity 
benefited? He had seen monkeys suffering cruelly 
from measles, to what end? He had seen animals 
covered with tar expiring in lingering agonies. 
What was the use? 

He had seen the doctor take a clear eyed, healthy 
cat and deliberately induce an ulcer in one eye and 
watch it day by day, eating the organ away and when 
the work of destruction was complete he would set 
up an ulcer in the other eye, encouraged appar¬ 
ently rather than the reverse by its heartrending 
screams of pain and finally throw it back into its 
cage in total blindness and convulsions of agony. 
And the results? What had the Scientists to show? 

A few of their vaunted remedies passed in review 
before him: 

Insulin which the Scientists admitted amongst 
themselves to be more deadly than the diabetes it 
was supposed to cure. 

Anti-toxin for diphtheria, dangerous and un¬ 
known as to its after effects while the simple Bella 
Donna was a known specific for the disease. The 
inoculation of anti-typhoid serum used in the war. 
Jenkins had been to the war and he knew that where 
the sanitation had been good, there had been no 
typhoid. Where the sanitation had been bad the 
anti-typhoid serum had not saved the troops. 
Typhoid had reigned in spite of it. And so on, and 
so on. In the whole long list of “discoveries” and 


176 


THE BEATING HEART 


“remedies” emanating from laboratories there was 
not one that he could find that had been proved of 
benefit, not one for which a simple common-sense 
substitute could not be found. 

Useful, beneficial, good—any of this work? No, 
it was simply hellish and having seen it as he had 
at close quarters and recognising it for what it was, 
it was his duty to stop it in the only way he could. 

It would not be murder, it would be homicide 
and justifiable a hundred times over. 

Anger carried him away for a moment but he 
brought his thoughts back to calm consideration. 
What good would it do? The removal of this one 
man? Very little, he admitted sorrowfully. But 
it seemed to him, in the phrase of the war: “it was 
his bit.” 

How often in the recruiting days the men had 
been told they were not to worry over the larger 
aspects, the greater issues of the war. They were 
not to say to themselves that the little which each 
man could do would not either win or lose the war. 
No, each man was to do “his bit.” If he killed one 
German it was good. If he killed ten, it was better. 
And if he shrank from killing a fellow man he was 
to remember that by so doing he was saving the 
lives of perhaps hundreds of his comrades. 

The same reasoning seemed to apply here. He 
could not do much. He could not sweep away that 
cancer of modern civilization—medical scientific 
research. He could not influence the ending of it, 
any more than he could influence the ending of the 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 177 

war, but he could do his bit. He could kill this 
one man and by so doing save thousands of his fel¬ 
low human beings and thousands of his no less fel¬ 
low beings—the animals. 

The human beings, really, Jenkins doubted if it 
were his mission to save. If they could be so blind, 
so stupid, so selfish and so cruel as to allow such 
work as the doctor’s, because they fancied they might 
gain something from it, it was only Divine Justice 
that they should be poisoned by the medicines manu¬ 
factured so hideously. That the Insulin gained by 
the torture of dogs; the anti-toxins brought by the 
agony of horses; the small-pox vaccine scooped from 
the aching sores of cows and all the other vile and 
filthy products of the laboratory should give them 
death and disease instead of the relief they sought. 

But for the sake of the animals, entirely innocent, 
unselfish, trusting, devoted, that this fiend would 
torture daily, year by year, if he lived, for their 
sake, Jenkins would “do his bit” and save them. 

The next morning he rose, his head clear, his 
heart stout and determined. He had been sent there 
for some good reason and he seemed to see it clearly 
before him as Joan of Arc saw her mission revealed 
to her. 

Possessing himself in patience, he would watch 
and wait till the opportunity came to take the doc¬ 
tor’s life and then he would take it as Jael slew 
Sisera, as Judith slew Holofernes. How many lives 
had he taken in the war? He couM not remember 
but it must have been many: lives of good honest 


178 


THE BEATING HEART 


brave men fighting for their country as he was fight¬ 
ing for his, then should he hesitate now to take a 
life so mean, so worthless, so harmful not only to 
his fellow creatures the animals but also to his fel¬ 
low men? Why should he not rid the world of this 
monster? A great calmness fell upon Jenkins as 
he made his resolve and from that hour, though he 
lived in pain, he had the courage lent him, of a man 
devoted to a cause. 


Chapter 3 

It was a Saturday evening and an evil-looking man 
stood at the door, when Jenkins opened it to a mod¬ 
est ring. He had a large black bag which bulged and 
looked heavy in his hand. 

“A fine cat, mister,” he whispered hoarsely, “only 
two bob, hand over and let me go.” 

Jenkins took the bag and loosening the string at 
its mouth looked down into it. At the bottom was 
a soft mass of handsome-looking fur from which a 
faint mew came as the cat saw Jenkins’ face at the 
top of the bag. It was evidently very tame and 
nestled up against Jenkins’ chest directly he drew it 
out. It was a magnificent creature, not a Persian, 
but with a very thick coat, pure white and a tail like 
the brush of an Arctic fox. Jenkins returned the bag 
and gave two shillings to the man with the evil face 
who immediately melted into the darkness and Jen¬ 
kins was just closing the door, the cat still in his 
arms, when the doctor came up from the outside 
and entered. 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 179 


“That’s a fine animal,” he remarked as he closed 
the door and the cat turned its great golden eyes on 
him, “how much did you have to give?” 

“Only 2/ Sir,” Jenkins answered, “the man has 
stolen it I should think.” 

The doctor laughed. 

“Evidently. Some old maid’s cat, I expect. Nice 
tame beast,” he put his hand on the cat’s head and 
ruffled the fur backwards and forwards rather 
roughly. The cat put its head back and looked at 
the doctor with some resentment in its golden eyes. 
“Accustomed to sit on the table and drink cream 
out of the old maid’s saucer, eh?” he went on half 
playfully. “Well, we’ve a little table here for you, 
my beauty. We’ll set you on it and clamp you down 
and then we set it spinning. One hundred miles an 
hour or more we keep you whirling round for a 
fortnight and then when we take you off your eyes 
will be all criss-cross and you’ll be just mad with 
terror. That’s what we’ll do with you. Pussy.” 
Then he walked on humming into his own study, 
into which he went and slammed the door. Jenkins 
left standing in the passage, the cat still clasped to 
him, wondered whether men were men or fiends. A 
sick loathing grew up in him and seemed to sub¬ 
merge his spirit like a, great wave. Then it rolled 
over, leaving him with a clear fierce determination 
that come what might, this thing in his arms so 
gentle, so trustful, should never be placed on that 
hellish table. 

The cat, distressed by something in the doctor’s 


i8o 


THE BEATING HEART 


touch or voice or face, turned its head up to Jenkins 
and fixed its beautiful golden gaze on him and ap¬ 
parently from Jenkins’ drawn sad face it gained con¬ 
fidence and began to purr. Jenkins with the fire of 
hatred glowing in his heart against mankind climbed 
the stairs to his own room and deposited the cat on 
his bed. He then set his stove going, drew his cur¬ 
tains and poured out a saucer of milk. The cat 
watched all these proceedings appreciatively and 
purred loudly in response. When it had lapped up 
all the milk while Jenkins held the saucer, it lay 
back on the bed and stretched its paws up purring, 
saying quite clearly, “Come and caress me. I’m ac¬ 
customed to it. I’m a very nice cat,” and Jenkins 
sat beside it, stroking it, with the tears burning be¬ 
hind his eye-lids. It was a stolen pet evidently and 
Jenkins would not have taken it in at the door except 
that he knew if he refused it, where possibly through 
him it might have a chance of safety, the cat stealer 
would simply take it on to another accursed labora¬ 
tory where it would have no chance of escape from 
the tortures awaiting it. 

That night the doctor called to Jenkins as he was 
going up to bed, “I’m very busy just now. I’ve got 
so many things going to attend to but I’ll have more 
time in a week or so. Just remind me about the 
cat later on, will you? If I forget.” 

Jenkins listened, his face growing dark as he 
stood in the shadow, on the stairs. 

“Yes, Sir,” he replied and went on up. 

The cat was waiting for him curled on the bed 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL i8i 


and mewed delightedly at his entrance, showing its 
white teeth and its little pink tongue, curled up like a 
rose leaf, behind them. 

Jenkins seated himself beside the cat and fed it 
on some scraps he had brought up with him. For a 
week the cat remained, a willing prisoner in his room. 
He gave it a large tray of earth over by the window 
to scratch in and replenished it every day from the 
bit of common ground round the house. He brought 
everything up to it and waited on it and never let 
it out where evil eyes could fall on it and all that 
week he searched the papers daily for some an¬ 
nouncement of a lost cat. There were no shops very 
near the laboratory but he walked every day to the 
nearest, a small newsagent’s and tobacconist’s where 
he bought his papers and then studied them diligently 
in his own room. 

At last he found the notice he wanted. 

“Lost. A large white tomcat. Not Persian, but 
thick coat and bushy tail. Finder will be handsomely 
rewarded if he brings cat to blank Grosvenor Square, 

W.” 

Jenkins read this with a beating heart. This was 
his cat he felt sure. The doctor was away for his 
usual week end. This was Saturday. He always 
was allowed Sunday afternoon for himself. Tomor¬ 
row he would take the cat back to its owner. 

That night he held it tightly to him and hardly 
slept but spent his time stroking and caressing it and 
realising how lonely he would be without it. But 
still to get it out of this hell, safe and alive, was 


i 82 


THE BEATING HEART 


everything. The cat, with all its claws sheathed 
in its velvet skin patted gently with its paws Jenkins’ 
thin cheeks and nestled close to him purring ecstati¬ 
cally. It missed its own house and mistress but no 
animal could be insensible of the flood of love and 
sympathy that poured out from Jenkins’ unhappy 
heart. The next morning he spent much time on 
brushing and combing its silky coat and about two 
in the afternoon with his heart high in hope he set 
out for Grosvenor Square, the cat curled round in 
the lidded basket which Jenkins had brought, filled 
with vegetables, with him from the country. He 
thought if he; could once see the owner of the cat 
and tell him or her of the horrors his or her pet 
had SO narrowly escaped, then surely anyone so rich 
and powerful as to be able to live in Grosvenor 
Square would take some steps against the system 
which made these horrors possible. 

When he arrived at the door of the house it was 
opened by a footman who at once glanced at the 
basket. When Jenkins asked to see the person who 
had put in the advertisement, the man replied 
affably, “Miss Courtneidge is in and I think will see 
you.” Then he stooped down and scratched at the 
basket side. “Cushy,” he called and a mew of recog¬ 
nition came from within. 

“Come upstairs,” he said and Jenkins followed 
full of joyful anticipation of coming face to face with 
someone who surely would listen to his message. He 
entered a large room and at the far end there sat 
Miss Courtneidge, a fat, middle-aged woman with a 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 183 


bright intelligent and pleasing face. She jumped up 
and took the basket from Jenkins smiling and lifted 
the lid. 

“Oh, there you are Cushy,” she exclaimed, and 
lifted the creature out with many murmurs of de¬ 
light. 

Jenkins stood by respectfully enjoying the scene 
to the full. There was no doubt the lady genuinely 
loved her pet and the cat could hardly have a better 
mistress. 

“Do sit down,” she said after a minute, “and tell 
me where you found him.” 

She sat down with the cat in her arms and Jenkins 
took a seat opposite her. 

“A man, a regular cat stealer, I think, brought 
him in a bag to our place and offered him to me 
for 2/—I saw at once he was stolen and I thought 
I’d better take him and try to find the owner. If I 
hadn’t, the man would have taken him to another 
laboratory where they wouldn’t have bothered to 
restore him to his owner but used him in the 
laboratory.” 

The lady was listening intently to Jenkins and he 
thought her eyes grew harder. 

“What are you then?” she asked quietly. 

“I am an attendant at a laboratory for Scientific 
Research,” returned Jenkins, “and the man brought 
the cat to be experimented upon, but I don’t like the 
business and I meant to save this cat anyway.” 

“If you don’t like it, why do you stay?” asked the 
lady quietly and very coldly. 


i 84 


THE BEATING HEART 


Jenkins realised that his hearer’s sympathies were 
alienated from him and the false position in which 
he stood came home to him. At first he had thought 
it might be possible to make a clean breast of his 
feelings. He had visions of the lady coming to see 
the tortured animals and in her righteous wrath 
having the hideous place done away with altogether, 
but now something in the coldness of her voice and 
eyes warned him he must go very carefully. 

“I stay to try and do what I can for the animals,” 
he answered, “do you know about this Scientific 
Research, ma’am?” 

“I know that it is a very noble work carried on 
by selfless men and women who give up their lives 
to the cause of humanity,” replied the lady proudly. 

Jenkins looked back at her aghast as these parrot 
phrases fell from her lips. Evidently she knew noth¬ 
ing at all about it and against this dense ignorance 
he felt he had no weapons. 

“You don’t know what goes on in the labora¬ 
tories, animals are tortured to death and given the 
most hideous sufferings that don’t lead to anything,” 
he said. 

The lady compressed her lips. 

“I cant’ believe you,” she said icily, “I have many 
friends who are doctors and scientific men and I am 
sure they would do nothing but what is right. If 
they have to experiment on animals I am sure they 
do it kindly.” 

Jenkins could have laughed bitterly as he heard 
but he controlled himself and answered: 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 185 


“How can you starve animals kindly, ma’am?” 

The lady looked cross and was silent for a 
moment and Jenkins burst out: 

“Do come with me now and I’ll show you what 
Scientific Research really means. The laboratory is 
empty, I am in sole charge, the doctor is away. 
Come and see the animals for yourself. Then you 
can judge about it.” 

The lady looked crosser than ever. 

“Thank you. I am quite capable of judging the 
matter already. I rely upon what my doctor tells 
me. In any case, if there were any cruelty, I couldn’t 
bear to see it, I couldn’t sleep for a week if I did.” 

Again Jenkins felt helpless and appalled. What 
stupendous folly, what selfishness! Any cruelty 
might be practiced, provided she did not see it, pro¬ 
vided her sleep was not disturbed. 

“I really must ask you to go now,” she continued. 
“I have a meeting this afternoon here of the League 
of Love. We have the Bishop coming and we are 
going to organize something to aid the hospitals.” 

Jenkins rose immediately. 

“To aid the hospitals! To build new laboratories 
for the torture of more animals! Oh ma’am, you 
don’t know what you are doing! If / had not saved 
your cat he’d have been pinned down to an electric 
table and spun round at 100 miles an hour for a 
fortnight and taken off it mad and blind to have 
his brain opened and looked at. That was his fate 
and how does that help humanity?” 

The lady was standing too. 


i86 


THE BEATING HEART 


“You need not expect that I shall increase your re¬ 
ward for bringing him back by telling me these 
wicked stories,” she said severely. “Here is two 
pounds. I shall not give you any more!” and she 
held towards him two pound-notes. 

Over Jenkins’ face ran a flame of scarlet, then 
faded leaving him ashy white. That was what she 
thought! That he was detailing false sufferings to 
increase his own reward! 

He took the notes from her hand and dropped 
them on the floor and then stepped forward and put 
his foot down on them, looking her full in the face. 

“That, ma’am, is what I care for your reward! 
I brought that creature back to you because I loved 
it. I never thought of the reward and should not 
have taken any in any case. I pray some day you 
may be shaken out of the darkness and the ignorance 
you live in.” 

He turned and strode to the door, leaving the 
notes on the floor and the lady too astonished to 
say anything. A pair of golden eyes watched him 
depart and a little soft mew came to his ears as he 
closed the door and seemed to stab into his heart. 

He walked down the stairs and out into the street 
with a sorely wounded spirit. All the joy and ela¬ 
tion at having rescued the cat and restored it was 
blotted out by the cold tide of despair. He felt 
that he was helpless to save others just as loving, 
just as beautiful as this one, from death by torture. 
What could he do? So long as the world consisted 
of the friends who did these things and the fools 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 187 


who were so kind that they couldn’t believe in the 
fiends and so cowardly that they would not consider 
the question for fear of losing a night’s sleep, what 
could he do? “God help me, God help me,” was the 
cry that rose in his heart. And formerly it had 
comforted him and he had believed that God would 
help him however unkind man might be. But how? 
Was there any God? Was it not a Devil who ruled 
the world if this sort of Scientific Research were 
allowed in it? Why should God help him, if he 
cared nothing for the miseries of the innocent and 
sweet animals he had created? 

Thoroughly miserable he went back to the hell 
on the common and up in his own room, making his 
solitary tea, he took himself severely to task. Had 
he wasted that golden opportunity, when he, know¬ 
ing the truth, was face to face with one who knew 
nothing except some phrases culled from the articles 
of doctors, in the Press? Could he have done bet¬ 
ter? Was it his fault that he had failed? Over 
and over in his mind he turned that conversation but 
could decide nothing. His brains felt battered and 
weary but he was glad the cat was gone. 

The very next morning when the doctor returned, 
he called Jenkins into his study. 

“Jenkins our stock of dogs is low, isn’t it?” 

“The last one died last night. Sir.” 

“Oh: which was that?” 

“The little Skye you were starving. Sir.” 

“H’m: when did I begin? Do you remember?” 

“Ten days ago.” 


i88 


THE BEATING HEART 


“Ten days! That’s quite a good record. Isn’t 
it? Had it eaten that coke I put in the cage?” 

“No, Sir. Only gnawed it a bit. I found blood 
on it where the coke had cut its mouth. It hadn’t 
eaten it.” 

“Oh, well,” cheerily, “we must get in some more 
dogs. By the way, there’s that cat, bring me that.” 

“Sorry, Sir, the cat escaped.” 

“What?” the doctor wheeled round in his chair 
and looked piercingly at his attendant, but Jenkin’s 
face was still and stolid as a mask. 

“You let it go, you mean, do you? I thought you 
were rather soft headed over that cat when it came 
in. Now look here, mind this, if any more animals 
escape at any time, I shall have no further use for 
you. See?” 

“Yes, Sir.” 

“And tomorrow morning you’ll go and get me 
half a dozen kittens: big ones. Go to the Army 
and Navy Stores or anywhere you like but mind 
those kittens are here by noon. I am going to try 
some eye transplanting.” 

Jenkins withdrew. 

How could such a man be allowed to exist, he 
asked himself. How could such a place as this 
stand? Why did not a lightning stroke burn it to 
the ground with its fiendish owner inside? Why did 
not the flame that swept over Sodom and Gomorra 
sweep also over the laboratories of London and 
obliterate them? 

Then he smiled grimly remembering how the 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 189 

laboratories were supported by the tax payer, ap¬ 
proved by the king, and beloved by the aristocracy. 

What was he, Jenkins, to think differently from 
all these? He was only a poor commonsense man 
of the people. But he knew and they did not. That 
was the tragedy of it. He would have given his life 
to be able to tell and convince them. 

Chapter 4 

One evening the doctor on coming home tossed 
a card over to Jenkins with the remark, “Better 
come to the lecture and hear me talk the money out 
of the public pocket.” 

Jenkins looked at the card and saw it admitted 
him at 8 p. m. on the coming Thursday evening to 
a lecture on Scientific Research by Sir Charles Smith- 
Brown, Dsc. M.D., etc., etc. Jenkins thanked him 
and put the card in his pocket and on the next Thurs¬ 
day he presented his ticket punctually at the time 
and place appointed. 

The small lecture room was already well filled 
when Jenkins entered and he noticed that the first 
four or five rows of seats were railed off by a crimson 
cord from the rest and in these were seated people 
that Jenkins recognized immediately as “gentle¬ 
folk.” They were all very well dressed in semi-eve¬ 
ning dress and had, for the most part, nice kind¬ 
looking intelligent faces. Jenkins spirits rose as he 
saw them. 

“Surely they can’t easily be humbugged,” he 


190 


THE BEATING HEART 


thought, “they’ve been taught to read and think and 
had plenty of time for schooling.” 

He slipped quietly into a vacant seat he saw some 
rows back of the red cord. Here the people were 
all in hats and coats and had evidently come on foot 
to the meeting. Their faces were harder looking 
than those in front but they also looked intelligent, 
interested and alert. Jenkins particularly liked the 
look of his neighbour. A hard working man he 
should think, perhaps a small tradesman running his 
own business or perhaps a clerk, anyway he looked 
keen and quick as a man with his own decided ideas 
and opinions. 

The platform was now filling up with figures: 
the ladies resplendent in gay coloured Opera cloaks 
and wearing jewels in their beautifully dressed hair, 
the men showing large expanses of shirt front. 
Among these Jenkins noted the sleek form of the 
doctor and a glow of hatred seemed to spread 
through him as he noted the suave smile on the thin 
lips and the benign expression of the whole face so 
different from the set, savage stare Jenkins was fa¬ 
miliar with as the man worked in his laboratory, 
tearing muscle and nerve out of quivering flesh. 

“Blasted hypocrite,” he thought furiously to him¬ 
self and then he noted the eyes of his neighbour 
quickly passing over the platform as the stately and 
imposing figures 'filed onto it quietly and took their 
appointed seats. 

“Who are they all?” he asked in an undertone of 
the keen faced one. 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 191 

“Regular swells, all of them,” the man returned 
in the same discreet voice which was quick like his 
eyes. “That’s the Marquis of Sedlestone In the 
chair and that’s Lord and Lord and Lord,” he ran 
off the names so quickly Jenkins could hardly catch 
them. “He’s gulled them all. They all believe In 
him and this beastly Research. That’s what beats 
me. How they can be such fools.” 

Jenkins nodded sympathetically. He felt happier. 
Evidently this man beside him knew the truth of 
things. He longed Intensely to confide In him and 
tell him what he knew but he controlled the Impulse. 
If he was to carry out successfully his great scheme 
absolute secrecy and concealment of his own feelings 
was necessary. There was no time for further talk 
In any case for after a few preliminaries on the plat¬ 
form had been arranged, there was the silver tinkle 
of a bell and the Marquis of Sedlestone rose to 
address the audience. 

There was absolute silence In the hall and Jenkins 
listened breathlessly to every word. 

“My Lords, ladles and gentlemen, we have the 
privilege tonight of being gathered together to listen 
to one of the most distinguished men of our time. 
Sir Charles Brown-Smith, M.D. Dsc. Science may 
be said to be the leading force In the world today 
and In him we see one of Its most brilliant expon¬ 
ents.” (Applause.) “Science today is advancing 
with the steps of a giant. Disease and decay are 
fading, diminishing, vanishing before It.” 


192 


THE BEATING HEART 


“What bosh all that is when they can’t cure a 
common cold,” thought Jenkins. 

“Maladies are disappearing. Yellow fever is 
conquered, consumption all but conquered, cancer—” 
“Is increasing,” shouted a voice at the back of 
the hall. 

There was some laughter in the back seats but only 
a slight offended rustle from the front rows. 

“Alas! Yes,” continued the suave well-modulated 
voice from the platform. “As my friend at the back 
of the hall has remarked, cancer is increasing and 
that proves that more research is needed, more 
patient labour, more funds, more encouragement for 
those noble toen and women who—” 

“You’ve been at it now over twenty years,” in¬ 
terrupted the voice in a dominant tone that filled the 
hall, “and had buckets of money poured into it, 
without an atom of result, except that cancer is 
spreading everywhere all the time, and it’s you 
people who are doing it. You’re not stopping it: 
you’re spreading it with your beastly laboratories 
all full of animals dying of it. Aren’t they breathing 
out cancer all the time? Aren’t their cages full of 
it? Aren’t the men who look after them carrying 
cancer germs with them everywhere?” 

While these strident questions were being hurled 
at him, the noble Marquis had waited silent on the 
platform, looking slightly annoyed and after a sec¬ 
ond or two he turned and made some observation 
to a young man sitting behind him, who rose imme¬ 
diately and left the platform by its side door. There 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 


193 


had been some applause from various parts of the 
hall as these questions full of scalding contempt had 
been shouted out and heads were turned and necks 
craned to see who the interrupter was. Only the 
front rows sat unmoved as if they had not heard, 
their eyes fixed before them waiting for the author¬ 
ised speaker to continue and a few seconds after the 
young man had disappeared from the platform, there 
was a violent scuffle at the back of the room. Be¬ 
tween two stout men of the law the interrupter 
was unceremoniously bundled out. 

“There’s the Free Speech of England today,” 
came a caustic whisper from Jenkins’ bright-eyed 
neighbour, “if ever there’s a revolution in England, 
it’ll be these damned medical men who are at the 
bottom of it.” 

Jenkins again nodded in silence. The noble Mar¬ 
quis was proceeding. 

“As I was saying, Science had made the most re¬ 
markable advances and suffering Humanity could 
turn its eyes hopefully to the future where disease 
would be stamped out, pain practically abolished, 
and the onset of old age delayed by 50 or 70 years. 
But I will not detain you longer. I will leave to our 
distinguished lecturer the pleasing task of explaining 
to you how these marvels will be accomplished.” 

“Awful tosh,” murmured keen-eyes as the noble 
Marquis took his seat and Sir Charles Brown-Smith 
rose to address the meeting. 

“My Lords, ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “my 
noble friend has promised you that I shall tell you 


194 


THE BEATING HEART 


some of the most recent marvels Science has accom-. 
plished and I will not disappoint you, but first I 
should like to say a few words on that vexed ques¬ 
tion—experiments on living animals. Some evilly 
disposed persons have recently been trying to oppose 
the glorious march of Science by suggesting that 
there is cruelty connected with these experiments that 
are so vital to our work, so necessary to its success, 
so far reaching in their results for suffering human¬ 
ity. I wish now to state that in my work I am 
frequently obliged to resort to these experiments and 
also to witness them in the studies of others and I 
can confidently assure you that there is not an atom 
of cruelty connected with them.” Here the doctor 
paused and beamed upon his docile audience through 
his large spectacles while a gentle smile suffused his 
whole benign countenance. A warm murmur of 
grateful applause rose from the seats beyond the red 
cord: the mass of the people at the back listened in 
sullen silence: an indrawn breath of sheer astonish¬ 
ment from Jenkins greeted this stupendous lie. 

“The animals,” continued the doctor, “who have 
the honour of being permitted to share in this glo¬ 
rious work, are cared for with devoted attention, no 
effort is spared in seeing that they are properly 
housed and well fed. They have every comfort and 
to see them sporting behind the bars of their spacious 
cages one would imagine they were rejoicing in their 
great destiny.” 

Jenkins, on hearing this, simply turned in his 
chair, open mouthed to his companion of the keen 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 195 

. eyes, and met their clear quizzical gaze fixed upon 
him. 

“Good one, that eh?” keen-eyes murmured. 

“Ananias!” shouted an unregenerate person at 
the back of the hall, “what about your starving ex¬ 
periments ?” 

The doctor deigned no reply and the former 
scuffling sounds being repeated, the audience knew 
that the interrupter had been removed and the 
English tradition of liberty again upheld. 

“Well fed, well cared for, watched over,” con¬ 
tinued the doctor blandly, “and all they have to suffer 
is the trifling discomfort of a quick prick from an 
inoculating needle or a variation of their usual diet.” 

As these lies poured smoothly forth in the great 
man’s mellow voice, Jenkins saw before him the 
rows of desolate zinc floored cages, each with its 
tortured inmate moaning out its life, he saw the 
puppies starving and distorted beyond recognition in 
the experiment for rickets, the dog blinded and sit¬ 
ting in hopeless agonies because his eyes had been 
taken to graft into another’s dog’s sockets, the 
monkeys wasted to a skeleton or hugely swelled, go¬ 
ing blind and semi-paralysed because their thyroid 
gland had been cut out, all these horrible sights rose 
before him and he gazed at the speaker, stupefied 
and dumb. 

His neighbour spoke in a low voice in his ear, 
very low because he had no wish to be turned out. 
He jerked his thumb in the direction of the red 
cord. 


196 


THE BEATING HEART 


“Why on earth they don’t see that he’s guying 
them, beats me,” he said. 

“So now let us dismiss this myth of cruelty from 
our mind, let us remember that great men are rarely 
cruel and let us refuse to believe these unjust libels 
that ignorant and prejudiced people are so wantonly 
spreading.” Here the doctor’s voice took on a mild 
severity and the red corders all warmly applauded. 

The speaker proceeded. 

“I have mentioned how this myth of cruelty im¬ 
pedes the progress of Science but I shall now touch 
upon something that is even more obstructive to our 
success: something that is constantly hampering us 
in our forward march, and that is in this country 
the absence of compulsion. Yes, my friends, it is 
true: we are suffering from too much liberty. Lib¬ 
erty is a very excellent thing, a fine thing, but it can 
be pushed too far, we can have too much of it.” 

^^Never/^ from the back benches. 

“Pardon me, we can have too much even of lib¬ 
erty. Liberty which harms ourselves, liberty which 
harms others must be curtailed. I say unhesitatingly 
that liberty to refuse the untold benefits of vaccina¬ 
tion, of inoculation, is an evil. Those who are so 
blind as to fail to see the benefits, for themselves, 
should be forced to accept them. I look forward 
personally to that time, not I trust, far distant, when 
like our great sister nation, America, we shall have 
compulsion for everything that is now left to the 
ignorant individual to decide for himself.” 

At this point the red corders began to move 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 


197 


uneasily in their chairs and look at each other. They 
were not quite so sure about all this. 

“What can the individual know about the uses or 
the benefits of the processes offered to him, which he 
so often rashly and fatally refuses? Is it fair to 
throw the burden of deciding upon him? How far 
better that the man of Science, the man who knows, 
should decide for him and compel him to accept the 
inestimable blessings of Science! I am pleased to 
say there is a great forward movement to be noticed 
lately in this direction, no one can enter the Army 
or the Navy or any public service, nor can a boy 
go to a public school without being vaccinated for 
instance, very excellent, very admirable and now that 
we have the Ministry of Health we may look for¬ 
ward to suitable laws being passed which will bring 
every individual, no matter of what class or station 
under the grasp of the healing hand of Science. 
Personally I think, and I hope, it will not be long 
before that simple and so necessary operation of tak¬ 
ing out the tonsils will be made compulsory.” 

“I should like to say a word,” came a voice from 
the back and it was so hollow, so sepulchral that it 
attracted instant attention and even the red corders 
looked round to see to whom it belonged. 

A young man of a pallid countenance and hollow 
cheeks was standing up and the doctor seeing the 
audience was interested and would like to hear what 
the interrupter had to say, affected to be quite will¬ 
ing and waited for him to continue. 

“I was well and strong,” proceeded the pale 


198 


THE BEATING HEART 


cheeked one in his remarkable voice which went all 
over the hall, “till a medical chap looked down my 
throat and advised me to have my tonsils cut out. 
I didn’t know what I was in for and went to a hos¬ 
pital and had it done. It’s a horrible operation 
and I suffered for a week after. Well, it’s done I 
think and that’s that. But it wasn’t over as I thought. 
My tonsils grow now since they’ve been cut. In a 
year I was told they must be done again and now 
I’ve been through that damned thing five times. I 
lose a lot of blood each time over it, it gets on 
my nerves, and I’m a wreck. That’s what cutting 
out tonsils has done for me. And I know it’s wrong 
now. The tonsils are filters put in our throats to 
filter the air before it reaches the lungs and to stop 
bad germs going further. I know now what Nature 
put’em there for and I say it’s a crying shame to 
take them out.” 

This last was shouted defiantly and the young man 
paler than ever before and with beads of sweat 
standing out on his corpse-like countenance sat down. 

There was dead silence for a moment in the hall 
where Truth for a second had flitted through the 
fog of lies rising from the platform and rent it 
with her sharp wings. 

Then the doctor, very suave, very smiling, took up 
his parable again. 

“My young friend has indeed suffered and we 
must extend our sympathies to him. At the same 
time we must not allow our judgment to be influenced 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 199 

by one unfortunate accidental case, when we know 
that millions are benefited. 

“Who says they are?” shouted back the young 
man. “Only you doctor people, not those who’ve 
been through it!” 

“And who should know better than the doctors?” 
blandly returned the lecturer. “That is just the very 
point I was going to elaborate when my young 
friend interrupted me. Perhaps he himself has been 
benefited, perhaps had he not taken the first advice 
he would have been now suffering from some malady 
worse than the mere loss of his tonsils, perhaps he 
would not have been here at all.” 

The red corders nodded solemnly at this and gave 
some faint indications of applause. In the back seats 
the young man muttered “Rot,” but the doctor 
was proceeding with his lecture and the young man 
and Truth were definitely squashed. 

Jenkins sat in his seat wondering. Had the young 
man made any impression on the red corders or not? 
He thought not. They had come there determined 
to hear the doctor, determined to hear no one else. 
They were determined to believe in him and to refuse 
to believe anyone else. That was their attitude. 
The doctor went on. 

“To compel people to be healthy and happy surely 
that is what the laws should aim at and while now 
having grown up in our present lax system of pleas¬ 
ing himself, the individual may feel it hard to have 
his liberty curtailed I look forward to the future in 
which the child having been brought up on scientific 


200 


THE BEATING HEART 


principles from the first will not miss what he has 
never had—his liberty. Yes, that is the ideal, ladies 
and gentlemen, the child, we shall begin with the 
child. We shall take him from the cradle, nay more 
we shall deal with the mother beforehand, so that 
his pre-natal welfare will be studied. In the future 
we shall no longer see the poor neglected child 
clinging to the hand of its slatterny mother and 
sucking at the noxious sweets she has in her ignor¬ 
ance bought for it. No! We shall see a little being, 
gently led by a sweet faced hospital nurse, his eyes 
carefully protected by glasses, his pearly teeth al¬ 
ready stopped with gold and supported by plates. 
No dirty clothes to harbor disease about him, he is 
dressed in the neat and simple uniform provided by 
the State. And within his little frame has been as 
carefully tended, his tonsils removed he need not 
dread tonsilitis, his appendix taken away what cause 
has he to fear appendicitis. X-rayed every week, no 
disease can, approach him unperceived. Vaccinated 
every year against smallpox, inoculated frequently 
for typhoid and all the murderous maladies that sur¬ 
round us, here is my ideal little citizen of the future. 
He faces life armed by Science against all ills. Is it 
not an inspiring picture?” 

The doctor paused and beamed in a fatherly way 
as if the little monstrosity he had conjured up by 
his words were on the platform, before him. 

The red corders gave some applause, there was 
dead silence at the back for a second, then a voice 
asked: 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 201 


“What about his little legs and arms, Mister, has 
he got’em still, or have they been sawn off and arti¬ 
ficial ones hooked on?” 

Loud laughter from all the back benches greeted 
this interruption. When it had subsided the doctor 
replied gravely: 

“Certainly nothing would be done to remove his 
limbs unnecessarily, if on the other hand any acci¬ 
dent happened to him there are artificial limbs in 
readiness so carefully thought out, so exquisitely 
fashioned that they function nearly as well as the 
natural ones.” 

“Rats!” came an angry voice from the wooden 
benches and a young man sprang to his feet.' He 
looked like an ex-soldier, his face was pale and thin 
with a hectic flush burning on his cheek-bones. One 
sleeve hung empty by his side. 

“Look at me!” he shouted, “I had my arm taken 
off in the war by some of you devils. Wasn’t a bit 
necessary, ordinary nursing would have saved it. 
But what’s that to you? You don’t care for flesh 
and blood, you only care for your devilish devices. 
I had a flesh wound and off you took my arm and 
gave me a false one, a thing all straps and buckles 
and springs that tortured me like hell. I was kept 
on view and taught to pick up a pin when the Queen 
came to see me. What good’s that to me? The 
whole thing fell to pieces after a week or two. 
You leave us alone and our children too. We don’t 
want your spectacles and your false teeth and your 
X-rays. Leave our young ’uns alone as God made 


202 


THE BEATING HEART 


’em. That’s what I say.” He sat down and all those 
at the back applauded loudly. 

The doctor on the platform gave his shoulders 
an infinitesimal shrug and waited in silence until the 
storm had subsided. Then he continued in a pained 
voice, as one grieved by the deep ingratitude of the 
world. 

“Again I can only say we must not judge from 
unfortunate exceptions. Artificial limbs are and 
have been and will always be a great boon to 
humanity.” 

“We prefer to keep our own, thank you!” re¬ 
torted the young man, which remark the doctor 
passed over with a patient air and continued his lec¬ 
ture. 

There was nothing new in it. The same old rub¬ 
bish that is always set afloat by the doctors and 
scientific men and then repeated pompously from 
mouth to mouth without examination by the asses 
in society was duly brought forward here. 

As the doctor himself with his usual cynicism 
would have remarked, “Why take the trouble to in¬ 
vent a new lie when you can still gull the public with 
the old one?” 

He cited the great benefits that Science had con¬ 
ferred on humanity in the War, how inoculation had 
saved the troops from typhoid without explaining 
why a hundred thousand had died after Gallipoli. 

He dilated on the wonderful advantages of the 
A-ray without mentioning the countless victims who 
had been slowly roasted to death under it. 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 203 

He expatiated on anti-toxin cures of diphtheria 
without explaining why the death rate from diph¬ 
theria had gone up and not down since its use and 
without mentioning that Bella Donna is a specific for 
that disease and there is no need whatever for 
anti-toxin which involves the most hideous suffering 
to horses. 

Lies and lies and more lies flowed from his lips 
until it seemed to Jenkins he got choked with them. 
A hurried sip of water and he brought his speech 
to a close with the usual appeal for more funds for 
Research, that noble work in which thousands of 
selfless men and women (like himself, he implied) 
were spending their lives. After that came some 
whisper and a little fluttering pause. Then the 
Chairman announced amidst applause from the red 
corders that a cheque for 50,000 pounds had been 
received from a member of the audience who wished 
to remain anonymous, for the splendid work—the 
direct result of the doctor’s moving address. 

With hissing and booing the company at the back 
got on to their feet and made for the doors. 

Jenkins and his neighbour went out together. A 
line of well appointed, lighted motors stood outside. 
The two men paused as if with one accord and waited 
watching the well dressed crowd come out, get into 
their cars and roll smoothly away. 

“There they go,” keen-eyes said bitterly, “home 
to sleep in their downy beds or to eat and drink 
with never a thought of the agony of the poor suffer¬ 
ing animals. Fools! Led by the nose by that crim- 


204 


THE BEATING HEART 


inal lunatic that’s been telling them all that rubbish 
this evening. And they’ve got the brains to see 
through it all, that’s what makes me so mad with 
them. It’s not as if they were stupid or uneducated 
and coiildn^t think for themselves. They won*t 
think.” He stopped and drew a pipe from his pocket 
and began filling it and ramming in the tobacco. “I 
used to think well of the upper classes at one time. 
I know they are unselfish and they work hard lots 
of them and do a lot of good to others but the way 
they’ve swallowed all this cant about Scientific Re¬ 
search, the way they shut their eyes and ears to the 
truth has disgusted me with them. We’ve got regu¬ 
lar devil-worship in England now. What these so- 
called scientific chaps do in their laboratories is 
appalling. It’s just sheer lust of killing and tortur¬ 
ing, lust run wild and those fools patronise it and 
because they patronise it, every man-jack in the 
Kingdom, got to pay for it. We’ve got to struggle 
along and pay taxes that fellows like this Smith- 
Brown may enjoy themselves wallowing in a horrible 
vice. I tell you I’ve read about devil-worship in 
Africa and whole communities being under the thumb 
of a few priests and we’ve jolly well got exactly the 
same thing going on in England today. The health 
of the country is being ruined, the blood and the 
brains of the people all messed up by the filthy 
inoculations and vaccinations and we are breeding 
more and more men with this lust in their brains for 
tearing living things to pieces and those people are 
responsible for all this.” He jerked his thumb in 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 205 


the direction of the departing motors gliding away 
soundlessly bearing their freights of humanity, good 
hearted, kindly persons for the most part, but utterly 
blinded by a foolish and fanatical belief: just as com¬ 
pletely as the simple savage peoples of darkest 
Africa are blinded by their medicine men when they 
order them to gash their breasts and throw their 
mutilated babies into the flames. 

“What can we do?” pursued keen-eyes as the two 
men turned away into the darkness of the wet streets, 
“^e’re poor, we can’t do anything. We can’t get at 
the public to tell it what’s going on. If we’re ill 
we’re lugged off to these beastly hospitals and cut 
up alive, we’re forced to send our children to school 
and the doctors there cut’em about as they like, what 
can we do? But those people, they could alter 
things, one of those lords owns a newspaper, if he 
studied the thing up, he could set it all out in his 
paper and squash the whole thing. He could show 
up these scientific men and what they do. He could 
show that this whole craze for torturing animals was 
just a form of lunacy. The nation wouldn’t support 
it for two minutes if it were once told what it was. 
But he does nothing, he uses his paper just to help 
the thing on. Then those other lords, they could 
speak in their House and say outright what it was— 
just devil-worship—but they allow themselves to be 
humbugged like all the rest of the fools.” 

After a pause keen-eyes started again in his 
quick fiery way. 

“What I keep on hoping is that the medical pro- 


2o6 


THE BEATING HEART 


fession itself will see what a mistake they are mak¬ 
ing. Already a number of doctors have declared 
themselves against experiments on animals. That’s 
the root of the whole trouble. Experiments on living 
animals. The doctors are wrongly trained from the 
beginning. The young men, the medical students in 
their classes, at their lectures, see a living animal 
being operated upon, being cut up, before them. 
Sometimes it is under an anaesthetic, sometimes par¬ 
tially so, sometimes not at all. They are taught 
that this is right, they are trained to cut the animal 
up alive themselves. They are trained to see ttie 
animal writhing and struggling in its helpless agonies 
and shown how to inflict them. These men are young 
men, they are just at that age when the brain is 
most susceptible to impressions, when the character 
is forming, when there are terrible impulses towards 
evil and equally great yearnings toward good. It is 
quite easy to see what an effect these classes must 
have upon them, these spectacles of the living pul¬ 
sating form of an animal being torn in pieces, by an 
older man, who is evidently absolutely indifferent 
to the horrible suffering he is causing. And this 
effect is evil. At first many of these young men do 
feel horror at the sight, they feel the normal sym¬ 
pathy everyone should feel at the sight of suffering. 
Then they are jeered at by their older companions. 
They are told that callous man who is sinking his 
knife between muscle and bone cutting the nerves of 
the poor moaning victim is doing right and a great 
man. Thus they are initiated into the devil worship. 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 


207 


Sometimes the young students overcome by the re¬ 
volt of all their natural instincts against it, faint at 
the revolting sight. They are carried out of the class 
room and revived. By the order of the professor 
they are brought back and made to witness the lin¬ 
gering torments of the animal on the operating-table 
They are being hardened. Day by day they are 
trained thus and gradually their normal feelings be¬ 
gin to change. From sickness and revolt at the 
horrors they see done, they come to a liking for 
them, a wish to participate in them, they become 
abnormal. Their brains having been shocked at the 
most sensitive age, they become deflected from their 
true balance. Those feelings of justice, mercy, sym¬ 
pathy and pity which distinguish the worthy human 
being disappear and the normal young man who 
commenced his medical course is at the end of it an 
abnormal ill balanced creature with that impulse 
towards cruelty we notice in the monkey highly de¬ 
veloped and the qualities of man carefully trained 
out of his crooked brain. And it is from this mate¬ 
rial we make our doctors ! The men we call in to 
treat our beloved sick, to minister to our dear ones 
when dying! Heavens, what a farce! Doctors above 
all men should be highly trained in sympathy and 
justice. Nothing should be allowed to cloud or 
shock the brain of the young medical student. A 
clear judgment, great power of observation, great 
sympathy with all suffering, reverence for life. 
These are the qualities we want in our doctors and 
should therefore be cultivated in our medical stu- 


208 


THE BEATING HEART 


dents. All that is necessary for the healing of the 
human body can be learned from the careful obser¬ 
vation of that body in health and in sickness and in 
death. Anatomy can be far better taught by cutting 
up the dead human body than the living animal.” 

He stopped and there was silence between them 
as they plodded on. Jenkins felt too crushed and 
wretched to be able to collect his thoughts and he 
knew it was not safe for him, with his ultimate object 
in view, to reveal himself or his sentiments to any¬ 
one. He felt vaguely comforted by the companion¬ 
ship of this other man who evidently, like himself, 
knew the truth, but he dared not confide in him. 
He could only listen in silence. The other did not 
seem to mind. He appeared to know instinctively 
that Jenkins was of one mind with himself and he 
asked no questions. At the corner of Oxford Street 
he stopped and held out his hand. 

“I wait here,” he said, “my bus’ll be along pres¬ 
ently. Goodnight, it’s a bad business but remember 
this, it can^t last. The day will come when this 
gigantic fraud on the public, this Scientific Research, 
will be exposed. We mayn’t be here to see it, worse 
luck, for it will take a long time but it must come. 
All frauds come to the same end.” 

Jenkins grasped his hand and wrung it, the kind 
keen eyes met his for a moment. Then they had 
parted and Jenkins was drifting down a side street 
alone with his hands driven down deep into the pock¬ 
ets of his overcoat and clenched there. 

What could he do, what could he do to unveil this 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 


209 


stupendous lie? To raise this flimsy curtain of a 
name and show the filthy loathsome lust that cowered 
behind it. He walked and walked desperately up 
one street and down another. He did not know or 
care where he went. He would walk through the 
night and only turn up at this loathsome work in the 
morning. The utter horror of the whole thing 
enveloped him like a cloud and his terrible impotence 
in the matter seemed like something stifling suffocat¬ 
ing him. He believed he could kill the doctor and 
so save a certain amount of horrible suffering but 
that was so little against the whole mass of evil and 
error that a small band of men had managed to let 
loose upon the world. For the whole world was 
affected. This folly of blind belief in the words of 
men who dubbed themselves wise and learned, bene¬ 
ficent and infallible, had spread its sickly snare not 
over one country nor quarter but over the whole 
world. Hospitals,; laboratories are found every¬ 
where and though there were wise and thinking 
people also everywhere they did not seem numerous 
enough nor strong enough to stop the march of Evil. 
Would the day of deliverance ever come? He won¬ 
dered dismally as keen-eyes had predicted. For the 
present this devil-worship was all on the up-grade. 
More taxes were being levied, more money thrown 
into the hands of the medicine men, more hospitals 
being built, more research laboratories being en¬ 
dowed. Jenkins wandered on through the damp, 
black streets depressed to the very uttermost. That 
lecture had pushed him down to the very depths of 


210 


THE BEATING HEART 


despair, just as Doctor Smith-Brown had cynically 
foreseen it would do. He saw that Jenkins had still 
some faith in the common sense of ordinary people. 
The doctor determined he should attend the lecture 
and see for himself how easily and completely they 
were taken in and deluded. Towards morning, stiff 
and aching in every limb he got back to the labora¬ 
tory. It was dark and cold: fires and lights were out 
and a low moaning of unutterable anguish filled the 
darkness. Jenkins went heavily up the stairs to his 
bed, wretched beyond description, oppressed by the 
wickedness of one half of the world and the stupidity 
of the other half. 


Chapter 5 

Three weeks had elapsed, three weeks of dreadful 
mental suffering for Jenkins and it had left its mark 
upon him. He was a changed man from the one 
who came strong and straight, clear-eyed and tran¬ 
quil-minded from the country. He had grown pale 
and gaunt, he stooped a little, his clothes hung on 
him loosely. Those sleepless nights when the 
screaming of the animals in mortal agony rang 
through the whole house penetrating even to his top 
room and through his blocked up ears, were draining 
his strength little by little, but now his resolve 
once fixed and the determination to kill the doctor, 
clear cut in his mind, he was less unhappy than in 
those first days of astounded wondering, crumbling 
beliefs and uncertainty as to where his duty lay. 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 


21 I 


Now that the Right lay plain before him, he had 
only one anxiety—that his strength would hold out 
until his duty was done. He walled himself round 
with a solid reserve and kept his grim purpose be¬ 
fore him night and day. He realised that he could 
do very little. He knew that when a whole nation 
has gone mad and determined to set up a horrible 
vice in its midst and worship it, one individual has 
little power to avert the madness. He had learned 
by now that there were these hideous laboratories 
all over London that the tax-payers of England were 
burdened to support them, that there were numbers 
of men afflicted with the same monomania as the doc¬ 
tor and whose work equalled in barbarity his though 
it could not exceed it. He knew all this, but in those 
horrible nights hearing the beseeching cries of the 
tortured animals below, he reasoned thus. Each 
of these scientific researchers is responsible for kill¬ 
ing in agony a certain number of animals. He had 
heard for instance the doctor quote a French surgeon 
who boasted he had done to death eight thousand 
dogs in his laboratory. He argued, therefore, if he 
could remove even one of these dehumained human 
beings from the world, he would certainly save a few 
thousand helpless animals from torture and Jenkins 
felt that was quite worth while. Of what use was 
this silly semi-demented old man who sat in his lab¬ 
oratory dabbling in the blood of dogs or writing to 
the newspapers about ridiculous cures he had dis¬ 
covered, that when tried were found to be no cures 
at all, or mixing his filthy glycerine in order to cul- 


212 


THE BEATING HEART 


tivate his still more filthy germs in it? Jenkins, not 
being one of the befooled public, saw very clearly 
that men like this one were not suppressing disease 
but spreading it: that these laboratories were plague 
spots where not new remedies, but new diseases were 
invented and elaborated. 

The doctor was quite mad, Jenkins was convinced 
of that and as there seemed no way of conveying 
him to an asylum where he belonged it would be 
well to remove him altogether from this world where 
he was doing so much evil not only to the animals 
but to Mankind. 

Therefore waiting and watching for his oppor¬ 
tunity Jenkins went quietly day by day about his 
work, suffering inwardly horribly for the poor mu¬ 
tilated animals he had to tend, but letting no sign 
of agitation or distress appear in his sedate and 
stoic manner. The doctor from time to time eyed 
him curiously noting with grim satisfaction the phys¬ 
ical changes that had taken place in his hard¬ 
working attendant. He was quite aware that Jenk¬ 
ins was more or less against his work and felt pain 
in seeing the tortures of the animals, and therefore 
his evil mind delighted in forcing him to witness the 
most brutal experiments. Such as tearing out a 
dog’s eyes to transplant them to another or cutting 
out an ear by the roots and sewing it into the vic¬ 
tim’s neck. He knew also that Jenkins saw through 
the whole farce and that he could not deceive his 
attendant as he did the easy going public, so he no 
longer pretended that these experiments had any use 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 


213 


in them. At the end of a loathsome exhibition of 
suffering and torture which had especially gratified 
his perverted sexuality, he would turn his gloating 
face with its protruding eyes and saliva covered lips 
to Jenkins and dig him playfully in the ribs. 

“Good work that, eh, Jenkins? Not exactly use¬ 
ful, but interesting, eh? Let’s say interesting,'' and 
Jenkins, a wooden figure with a wooden face would 
stand there with the fires of just indignation burning 
him to death within and exerting all his mental and 
moral force to keep himself from striking down the 
fiend in front of him. 

So the days passed for the two men, shut away 
from the world in their little building on the piece 
of waste ground by the common—playfully for the 
doctor who “loved his work” as he was never tired 
of informing the newspapers. He did indeed love 
his work and wallowed in its atrocity as a drunkard 
in his cups. It was the only true thing he ever said 
but that was true, he loved his work—painfully for 
Jenkins who thought each night he could bear his 
martyrdom no longer. But at last the end came. 

Jenkins had had a peculiarly sickening afternoon: 
dog after dog had been taken: thrown in the vivi¬ 
secting trough, wrenched and racked and torn, its 
netves stimulated, red hot irons passed through its 
most sensitive parts and finally been thrown in shriek¬ 
ing agony into a corner. The doctor was enjoying 
himself, that he loved his work was very evident 
from his excited face, from which he occasionally 
wiped the sweat and then resumed his task with fresh 


214 


THE BEATING HEART 


ardour. Six o’clock struck and the doctor stopped. 

“Done a good day’s work, I think,” he remarked. 
“Take ’em away, Jenkins, kill ’em if you like. I’ve 
done with them. I’ll have a fresh lot tomorrow,” 
and he waved his hand to the mangled heap on the 
stone floor in the corner from which long gasping 
shivering cries were rising. “I’m going out. Go 
upstairs and get your tea. I shan’t want you again 
till tomorrow.” With that he turned to his dressing 
room from which Jenkins knew he would soon 
emerge, calm, collected, bland, immaculate, the 
suave man of Science that he appeared in public. 

Before getting his tea, Jenkins turned to see what 
could be done for the poor bleeding remnants of 
living beings in the heap. Alas, nothing but to quiet 
them in death. He bent over them despatching them 
as gently and as quickly as he could and in half an 
hour the last poor battered thing had expired. Just 
then the doctor came out smooth and sleek and 
genially smiling. Well dressed as always and hold¬ 
ing a little paper in his hand. 

“I’m thinking of making a few remarks tonight 
on the benefit of Vivisection. Some old faddists are 
getting up on their hind legs and saying it shouldn’t 
be allowed, so it’s best to give the public our usual 
little dose of talk.” 

Jenkins, sick to death, just nodded and went on 
with his task of carrying out the dead bodies. Then 
suddenly as the lightning flashes the moment was 
upon him and the whole man’s spirit sprang to atten¬ 
tion and every fibre within him quivered for action. 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 215 

On his way out the doctor paused by the door of the 
lethal chamber and Jenkins on his way back for an¬ 
other body, found him standing in the hallway 
sniffing delicately about him. 

“There’s a queer smell here,” he remarked. “I 
don’t like it. Where does it come from?” 

As he spoke he turned the handle, pushed open 
the door, of the lethal room, and—entered. Jen¬ 
kins, the blood stinging in all his veins and a great 
light in his brain, moved forward. He was not con¬ 
scious of movement, only of intention. Equally 
without consciousness of the action, his arm shot out, 
his lean fingers gripped the handle. The brain had 
had standing orders given it long ago and now the 
moment had come, like lightning it obeyed. 

The heavy door swung to and clicked. It was 
shut and no earthly power could open it from within. 
There was no sound. Silence fell on the laboratory. 
The instant the door had closed Jenkins became a 
different man. The great deed for which he had 
lived night and day was done, swiftly and success¬ 
fully accomplished. He held his head high. His 
heart swelled within him with a joyous sense of duty 
done just as when he had walked out of the enlisting 
office in August, 1914, a soldier proud to die for 
his country. So now if he had to die on the scaffold 
for this night’s work he would die proudly for he 
knew that the work was good. One liar, one duper 
of the public, one traitor to his country, one monster 
of cruelty, if but one, had been put out of existence. 
A great flood of joy seemd to engulf him and he 


2i6 


THE BEATING HEART 


stalked forward to the pipes and tubes to turn on 
the taps that let in to the chamber the deadly gasses. 

It was but the work of a few minutes, for the 
useful chamber was always kept in readiness by the 
doctor. It might be some unexpected visitor might 
call at the moment when an animal was screaming 
under the doctor’s fingers and then the quickest way 
to obtain silence was to throw it into the lethal 
room out of the way before the visitor was admitted. 
Of course if it were a man of Science such a precau¬ 
tion was unnecessary because he would understand 
that the piercing cries only meant his fellow worker 
was “loving his work” and pursuing it as usual but 
it might be an ordinary person who called and then 
ordinary people take a different view of these things 
and have to be humbugged accordingly. 

Jenkins stalked to the tubes and turned the taps 
full on. There were no merciful air holes in this 
chamber arranged so that the air might mix with the 
burning gasses and the victim may be overcome by 
the mixed fumes instead of being choked and burnt 
to death. No, the doctor wouldn’t have air holes 
and when Jenkins had pointed out to him how 
twisted and contorted the bodies were that he had 
to remove pointing to the fact that a very painful 
death had been experienced, the doctor had gazed 
at him over his cigarette smoke with a mild reflective 
gaze for a few seconds and then had turned away 
without a word. The air holes had never been made 
and a grim smile hovered for a moment over the 
attendant’s impassive face as he turned on the gas 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 


217 


and then walked away down the passage to the stair¬ 
way where he sat down on the lowest stair . . . 
waiting, while the minutes passed. Then suddenly 
the three dogs in the reserve room broke into loud 
and joyous barking. Jenkins listened astonished. 
He had never heard them do that before. No ani¬ 
mal within those walls ever lifted its voice except 
to wail in agony. But now? Did they know their 
hideous persecutor was dead? Could they see the 
spirit passing? Animals have many higher gifts 
than man: many instincts, many powers that are de¬ 
nied to him; or that he has destroyed by his vices, 
which they are without. And their nearness to the 
spiritual world had often struck Jenkins before. 
This was extraordinary. He could hear them bound¬ 
ing and scuffling about in the room giving short sharp 
barks of joy. Jenkins first thought was to go in but 
with his hand on the door knob he paused. He had 
only just lately had their dead companions in his 
arms. He would go and take off his blood stained 
garments before meeting them, get rid of the scent 
of death which they would recognize so well but he 
had something to do first. He must put out of their 
long long suffering those poor unfortunates that 
awaited in the ghastly gallery the morrow’s torture. 
He switched on the lights and then entered the gal¬ 
lery, where the scientist had pursued the work he 
loved. Jenkins could not bear to meet the sad, 
glazing eyes that stared dully at him through the 
bars of those cruel cages. What would he not 
have given to have been able to restore the joyous 


2i8 


THE BEATING HEART 


healthy forms they had possessed before the Scien¬ 
tist had cut and beaten and mangled and starved 
them out of all resemblance to living creatures. But 
he was helpless, man can destroy but he cannot 
create an animal. 

At last it was over. All life was extinguished and 
the many mangled forms lay stretched on the cold 
zinc floors of their cages where they had dragged out 
their existence of months and years of suffering. 
Jenkins gave one glance round: his hands and feet 
cold but his heart burning like a red hot coal within 
him. 

“This place justifies me,” he thought, “if anything 
is needed, this place alone is my excuse.” 

Then he switched out the lights and death and 
darkness reigned supreme in the place of agony. 

Coming out into the hall, he heard the joyous 
voices of the living dogs and his face cleared a little 
of its gloom. He walked to the lethal chamber and 
turned off the tap. Then he hurried up to his own 
little flat and there soon had stove and lamp well 
alight. He washed and changed his clothes rapidly. 
It was wonderful how light and strong he felt. 
Some great pressure in the atmosphere was removed 
now that he knew that evil thing was safely locked 
in the chamber below. Where had the evil spirit 
gone? Jenkins did not know nor care. If it were 
about in the house any where still Jenkins was not 
afraid of it. 

His conscience was so absolutely clear, his heart, 
his brain, all his instincts told him he was right, that 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 


219 


he had done well. He felt certain that any decent 
man watching that fiend working day by day would 
have acted as he had done, if he had stayed his hand 
so long. Most men in his place would have jumped 
on the doctor and strangled him when he first re¬ 
alised what the so-called scientist really was. No 
good man who knew the truth would condemn him 
so his heart was light and he had no fear of the 
doctor’s ghost. He would have met it cheerfully 
and give it some straight talk had it ventured up the 
stairs. 

But no ghost or spirit came and Jenkins hurried 
along over his dressing and then made his long be¬ 
lated tea. Then with an armful of dog biscuits and 
a great jug of milk he descended to the expectant 
four foots below. 

The lights were burning and the place looked cosy 
and cheery enough. The lethal room was there solid 
and silent guarding well its secrets and the welcom¬ 
ing bark of the dogs hearing his footsteps resounded 
through the hall. Jenkins opened the door and im¬ 
mediately out bounded the dogs leaping up to and 
caressing him. He saw at once the difference in 
them. Up to now a horror and terror had seemed 
to brood over them: it was in the air of the whole 
place, never had they ventured before uninvited into 
the hall. What they smelt, what they heard in that 
accursed place had told them frightful things, though 
Jenkins had guarded them all he could from that 
knowledge. 

Now they capered about the hall unrestrained and 


220 


THE BEATING HEART 


leapt up at Jenkins’ side as if accclaiming him and 
welcoming him as their master. Jenkins, too sad at 
heart for his frolicsome companion to wholly cheer, 
went into their room soberly and filled all their 
saucers to the brim and broke their biscuits with 
careful fingers. After all it was so little that he had 
done! Just one of these men stopped from their 
horrible work, only one out of so many. Yet little 
actions sometimes had widespreading results. He 
wondered sadly whether by the voluntary sacrifice 
of his life he could do anything, by giving himself 
up and telling plainly and boldly his whole story in 
the dock to judge and jury, would he accomplish 
anything? Would Judge and Jury listen and be¬ 
lieve? No, he thought not, they would be just like 
the lady to whom he had restored the cat. A per¬ 
sonal motive would be ascribed to him for his act 
and Judge and Jury would only listen to the crowd 
of scientists who would pack the court. They would 
tell the judge and jury that animals did not feel, 
that when cut up alive it was done with the greatest 
kindness that the vivisectors who were appointed 
to inspect these places would certainly not sympathise 
with vivisectors working these, that Sir Charles 
Smith-Brown, Dsc. M.D., L.R.C.P., etc., etc., was 
the kindest man that ever breathed, that he lived 
only to benefit humanity and all these lies would be 
believed and all this absurd nonsense swallowed and 
Jenkins’ plain truth set aside and Jenkins hanged. 
That would be all. As for the newspapers they 
would not report a word of what Jenkins said but 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 221 


only what the scientists said by whom they were 
paid. No to keep his life if possible and gradually 
try to disseminate the truth was the only way that 
offered any hope. There must be some thinking men 
and women In England. They could not all be 
maundering fools like those that sat in Parliament 
and babbled about “effective Inspection of labora¬ 
tories” by vivisectors and voted huge sums of money 
for cancer research, i.e., for infecting thousands of 
animals with cancer, for cultivating cancer, and thus 
spreading the disease through the length and breadth 
of the land. 

No, he decided, slightly comforted, they couldn’t 
all be fools! There must be some common sense 
left In England somewhere. He must try to find 
it and appeal to it. 

The dogs’ supper over, he let them out for a run 
and then proceeded on his rounds as usual to see 
all was closed for the night. There were some let¬ 
ters for the doctor in the letter box and these he 
took out and arranged carefully on the table under 
a green shaded lamp In the doctor’s own special 
little study, the door of which was just opposite the 
door of the lethal chamber on the other side of the 
hall. 

He turned out all the lights and locked all the 
outer doors except the hall door which “the doctor 
would open with his latch key when he returned.” 

Jenkins felt the value of knowing his story be¬ 
forehand and he was from now on going to entirely 
forget that the doctor’s body lay in the lethal 


222 


THE BEATING HEART 


chamber. When it was eventually dragged out, it 
must be a surprise to him. He had been told by the 
doctor that the latter was going out and that he 
might go upstairs to his tea. That was at 6 o’clock. 
He had availed himself of the permission and gone 
upstairs leaving the doctor in the hall. He had not 
seen him since and when he came down he concluded 
that the doctor had gone out and not returned. 
That was going to be his story and he was going to 
act in every particular as if were a true one. So 
he ranged the letters carefully under the lamp tidied 
the doctor’s papers and left everything in order for 
his return. 

At ten he went to the main door and whistled 
in the dogs, saw them to their beds with many ca¬ 
resses, then rather wearily sought his own. 

But there was quiet and peace waiting for him 
tonight. No shrieks, no groans, the dead and the 
living alike side by side slept soundly that night 
in the laboratory. 


Chapter 6 

Six days had elapsed and the laboratory still stood 
silent without a master. Jenkins moved about in it 
silently as a ghost, doing everything exactly as he 
would have done had he expected the doctor’s re¬ 
turn any minute. He had sent the three dogs down 
into the country by train to the man who kept an eye 
on his little cottage while he was away and who 
would look after them. Inwardly he was longing 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 223 

for it all to be over, longing to leave this accursed 
spot where he had gone through such horrible suffer¬ 
ing. His work was all done there now. Every cage 
in the long corridor had been thoroughly cleaned 
out: the bars polished: the floor washed and the tiles 
of the corridor itself swabbed over and rubbed to a 
glistening cleanliness. The doctor’s rooms were 
kept swept and dusted and each day’s letters as they 
came in were ranged in neat order on his writing 
table, with a little space between each day’s group. 
The fires were lighted in the morning, the lamps 
lighted in the evening. 

Jenkins waited up till ten o’clock each night. Then 
solemnly switched off the lights and retired. He was 
pale and gaunt but not unhappy now, as compared 
with his former days here. He had done what he 
could. It was not much but it was something, and 
perhaps work lay ahead for him in the future. Per¬ 
haps he could be instrumental in exposing this awful 
vice, this cruel murderous lust that called itself 
Scientific Research. He missed the three dogs 
enormously but here again he hugged himself with 
pleasure in thinking they were safe and out of the 
way. 

It was just five on the Saturday evening and Jenk¬ 
ins was downstairs taking his tea in the dogs’ room 
where he kept now his little outfit for tea making, 
that he might be at hand to open the door. A ring 
came and he rose at once to answer. 

“Sir C. Smith-Brown at home?” queried the thin¬ 
lipped young man who stood outside. 


224 


THE BEATING HEART 


“No, sir.” 

“Oh. When do you expect him back?” 

“Any time, sir. He has not been in this week: not 
since Monday evening.” 

“Really? I wonder where he is then. I don’t 
seem able to catch him anywhere. Did he say he was 
going into the country or anything?” 

Jenkins shook his head. 

“No, sir. He just left on Monday about six and 
said he wouldn’t want me again that day. I expected 
him next morning but he didn’t come and I haven’t 
seem him since.” 

“Funny! You’ve been here all the time I sup¬ 
pose?” 

“Oh, yes, sir, I never go out unless the doctor 
gives me special leave to.” 

“Well, I’ll look up Dr. Jones and see if he’s there. 
Thanks, good night.” 

The young man departed. Jenkins closed the 
door and went back to the dogs’ room where he re¬ 
boiled his kettle and made himself another cup of 
tea. 

“That’s the beginning,” he thought to himself. 
“Now there’ll be a disagreeable time I expect, and 
after that I’ll be free I hope,” and he smiled to 
himself as he thought of the rescued dogs waiting 
for him in the country. 

Jenkins was right. The search for the doctor had 
begun. At nine thirty, a longer more peremptory 
ring sounded through the house accompanied by a 
knock. He went at once to the door. The thin- 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 225 


lipped young man was there but this time in com¬ 
pany with a shortish rotund man who made up 
for his insignificant stature with great pomposity of 
manner. As soon as the door was opened he stepped 
over the threshold with a hint of defiance in his bear¬ 
ing as if he expected an effort on the part of Jenkins 
to keep him out and had determined it should be 
unsuccessful. Jenkins inwardly amused immediately 
stepped back having opened the door to its fullest 
extent. 

“This seems a serious affair about your master,” 
began his visitor. “He is not at his house, he is not 
at his hospital, and you say he is not here.” There 
was the faintest accent laid on the “you say.” Jenk¬ 
ins looked gravely interested. 

“When did you see him last?” 

“Monday evening, sir, about six.” 

“He’s not been back since, not even looked in, 
eh?” 

“No, sir, I don’t think he could have. All his 
letters are here.” He stepped to the study door and 
threw it open, switching on the light. The neat cosy 
little room stood revealed very orderly. On the 
table under the green shaded lamp lay the doctor’s 
letters ranged in their little groups according to the 
day of their arrival. 

The doctor’s chair was drawn toward the hearth, 
neatly swept up where a small fire burnt primly. 

The two visitors peered into the room, the rotund 
Dr. Jones went up to the table and fingered one or 


226 


THE BEATING HEART 


two of the letters as if he hoped to gain information 
from them. 

“Such ani exact man, such a precise man, I can’t 
understand his going off like this for six days and 
telling nobody.” 

He stared hard at Jenkins who returned his gaze 
with a slightly distressed expression but made no 
reply. 

“Well, I think I and my friend would like just to 
look through the place,” Jones continued, his man¬ 
ner something between embarrassment and aggres¬ 
sion. 

“We should feel more satisfied you know and 
something might strike us as a clue to his disappear¬ 
ance.”' 

Jenkins assented at once. 

“Do, sir, will you go round alone or shall I come 
with you?” 

“Oh, you come along by all means,” Jones an¬ 
swered and the three of them came out of the study 
into the hall again. Jenkins opened the next door 
that of the cold long gallery where the agonized 
animals had suffered such hideous miseries. Here 
there were no fires: the air was deadly chill and still 
foul, or so it seemed to Jenkins, the electric light 
fell wanly on the white walls, the lofty arched roof 
and the cold glistening tiles of the floor. 

Jones advanced. Then stopped short with an ex¬ 
clamation as his eye caught the long row of empty 
silent cages. 

“What’s this? Got rid of his animals? Why that 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 


227 


looks as if he knew he were not coming back 1 What 
do you thing of that Edward?” he addressed his 
companion. 

“Looks like it,” he replied laconically. 

“When did the doctor dispose of his animals?” 
asked Jones wheeling round upon Jenkins. 

“He’d been using them up for some time, sir,” 
answered Jenkins, “and last week he said he’d finish 
with all he’d got and have a fresh stock in and I was 
to clean out all the cages and have them ready for a 
new lot.” 

“Oh, he said that, did he?” returned Jones. 
“Hm—hm—hm. Well, let’s go on down to the end. 
See if he’s left a note or anything on the table.” 

The three men filed down the cold long room to 
the end where behind the screen which helped to shut 
this part off from the corridor stood the doctor’s 
armchair close to the hearth. The heavy writing 
table was covered with papers all neatly piled and 
arranged. Everything was neat and in order all 
most carefully dusted. The large inkstand carefully 
polished and a tray of freshly nibbed pens awaited 
the doctor’s return. Evidently his servant had ex¬ 
pected him back. 

Dr. Jones looked disconsolately over the table. 
There was no note or letter there. The last thing 
apparently that the doctor had written was a chem¬ 
ical equation, drawn out on a half sheet of notepaper. 
This lay on the blotting pad, carefully preserved by 
the invaluable Jenkins. 

Dr. Jones looked at it and then laughed. To 


228 


THE BEATING HEART 


those who know how to read the ciphers it repre¬ 
sented a burning solution, designed to separate liv¬ 
ing flesh from living bone. 

“Well nothing here, Edward, we’ll go upstairs,” 
and following Jenkins, upstairs they went. They 
tramped through the doctor’s comfortable little 
suite above, looking in cupboards and under the bed 
and finding nothing but order and extreme cleanli¬ 
ness everywhere. 

After that Jenkins’ rooms were entered and 
searched but the simple furniture and narrow bed 
were soon looked over and under. The dog’s room, 
the bathroom, the landings the little coal cellar: they 
searched all most thoroughly expecting as it seemed 
to Jenkins to find the doctor’s body concealed some¬ 
where and possibly swinging behind some door. Dr. 
Jones seemed to have jumped to the conclusion that 
it was a case of suicide. 

“I can’t understand his stopping all his experi¬ 
ments and giving up all the animals like that,” Jen¬ 
kins heard him remark to his friend. “Looks like 
suicide, ’pon my word it does.” 

Their search yielded nothing however and at last 
with a curt goodnight to Jenkins they left, passing 
by the lethal chamber on their way out. 

“Fools,” thought Jenkins as he closed the door 
after them. 

After that there was no more tranquility at the 
laboratory. The bell was frequently being rung, 
people came to enquire, Jenkins was interviewed by 
various persons, asked the same questions over and 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 229 

over again and told the same lies in answer with com¬ 
mendable consistency. 

The papers now had got hold of the story and 
devoted large spaces to the mysterious disappearance 
of the famous scientist. Reporters came to see 
Jenkins and to hear repeated the few simple sentences 
he could tell them. But to these reporters he added 
to his story accounts of the doctor’s doings and took 
the reporters in to see the vivisecting troughs and all 
the ghastly instruments of torture that are the stock 
in trade of the Scientific Researcher. But though 
they looked open eyed and open mouthed on these 
gruesome objects and wandered up and down the 
long gallery reading the incriminating labels on the 
empty cages never a word of any of these things 
appeared in their reports in the papers as Jenkins 
vainly hoped. 

In talking to them, he naturally had to preserve 
the stolid indifference of manner that had been his 
mask so long and appear to think all this scientific 
atrocity in order and he could feel that even these 
light headed and unthinking young men shrank away 
from him in loathing. At such times Jenkins would 
feel a madness of longing to shake them by the hand 
and urge them to carry his message to the world but 
all this he crushed down. To show the least dis¬ 
approbation of the doctor’s doings, to be anything 
but the servile laboratory attendant would attract 
suspicion to himself, perhaps fasten the noose round 
his neck. So he bore their evident contempt and 
disgust with himself as he had borne all the rest of 


230 


THE BEATING HEART 


his sufferings in that place without a sign and in 
their attitude to him he had a certain rejoicing. It 
gave a glimmer of hope for the future. 

“Catch me giving a penny of my money to Cancer 
Research after this,” he heard one of the men say to 
his companion as they went out and his heart warmed 
with hope. 

Alas! the next morning in the very paper which 
had sent these two to report there was a glowing 
article upon the doctor’s work, his superb labours 
for humanity and all the rest of the unutterable 
twaddle with which Jenkins was by now so familiar. 
Days passed and still nothing was heard of the emin¬ 
ent scientist, the Press made all they could out of his 
disappearance, it was the favorite topic of the clubs 
and dinner parties. He had simply vanished and 
public interest and excitement skilfully fanned by the 
papers waxed and grew. 

On the second Saturday after his disappearance 
just when Editors were thinking out a new headline, 
the favorite Possible Clue found to the Smith- 
Brown Mystery, having been rather overworked the 
end came abruptly. 

At nine in the morning Jenkins opened the door to 
a small group of men led by a man in an inconspicu¬ 
ous uniform. 

“I am a police inspector and have a warrant to 
search these premises.” 

“Yes, sir,” returned Jenkins simply. There was 
nothing very new in that. “This is the doctor’s study 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 


231 


sir/’ he said, throwing open the door as he had done 
before for Dr. Jones. 

The Inspector just glanced that way. Then he 
stepped up to the door on the other side of the hall. 

“What’s this?” 

Jenkins turned back to him. 

“That’s the lethal chamber, sir.” 

The Inspector put his hand on the handle, turned 
it and pushed the door. It resisted and as he pushed 
it more there was the soft heavy sound of some inert 
thing being moved within. 

“Stand back, gentlemen, please,” he said as the 
little group pressed forward, and turned his electric 
torch into the black aperture made by the partially 
opened door. The white light gushed in and its 
broad streak fell on the large head and upturned face 
of the doctor. Mouth wide open as he died gasp¬ 
ing, eyes bulging in a last grisley stare. There was a 
gasp of horror from the onlookers as they drew 
back, a sickly odour stealing out from the little room 
and enveloping them. 

The Inspector seemed the only man unmoved. He 
ordered one of his men to support the door that it 
should not close and two others to follow him. Then 
he went in and the three of them brought out the 
doctor’s body between them into the hall and laid it 
down. It was horribly contorted as if the man had 
died writhing. 

Jenkins turned away. He knew the look so well, 
just so all knotted with agony, had the poor little 
monkeys been when he drew them out from where 


232 


THE BEATING HEART 


they had huddled against the door or walls. The 
Inspector touched his arm. 

“This must be very painful to you,” he said 
kindly, touched by the woebegone look of Jenkins’ 
gaunt wasted face. 

“We do not need you for the moment. I shall 
have some questions to ask you presently but don’t 
stand here now. Go into the next room and sit 
down.” 

“Thank you, sir,” replied Jenkins brokenly and 
went. 

Nothing could have been better nor convinced the 
Inspector more completely of his entire innocence 
of any participation in the doctor’s death but it was 
not pose on Jenkin’s part. In truth, physically he 
felt he could not stand much more of nervous strain 
and mentally he felt actually crushed with grief, 
though it was not as the Inspector supposed for his 
master, but for the countless little victims that mas¬ 
ter had so wantonly destroyed. 

After a time the Inspector came to him and ex¬ 
amined him. He questioned him and cross-ques¬ 
tioned him but Jenkins made no mistakes. His short 
simple sentences, his direct replies, his simple man¬ 
ner, even his wooden face all together produced the 
impression of a man, unlikely to do anything excep¬ 
tional and original. He seemed to be the typical 
routine worker and wholly unconnected with the 
tragic event of his master’s death. 

At the inquest a verdict of Death from Misad¬ 
venture, the doctor having been overcome by the old 


SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL 


233 


gas fumes remaining in the unventilated chamber, 
was returned and Jenkins after his evidence was al¬ 
lowed to leave for his home, unsuspected and 
unopposed. 

Down in his tiny cottage, one evening, before a 
blazing fire, where his three dogs lay extended in 
dozing comfort, sitting by the table with his pot of 
tea beside him, he was somewhat laboriously reading 
a dull newspaper until his eyes caught these astound¬ 
ing head lines: 

New Crusade for the Churches. 1,000,000 
pounds appeal. Science and Religion to co-operate. 

Looking through the article he gathered that 
clergymen in all the churches were to preach to their 
congregations on the beauty and virtue of Scientific 
Research and raise a million pounds to be spent upon 
it. It was stated their scheme had the warm ap¬ 
proval of the doctors. A little lower down he came 
on this paragraph: 

“There is no more noble example of selfless ser¬ 
vice on behalf of humanity than the men and women 
engaged in Research work,” and a little lower down 
still these same men and women were described as 
“dedicated spirits giving themselves as instruments 
into the hands of God, that His Will may be done 
upon Earth.” 

After reading this Jenkins sat back in his chair 
and remembered the doctor giving measles to his 
monkeys, filling cats with water till they burst and 
infecting healthy animals with cancer which never 


234 


THE BEATING HEART 


becomes human cancer and starving dogs to give 
them rickets. 

“And the church now is going to help,” he mut¬ 
tered. “Good Lord and Good Lord and Good 
Lord—” 













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